Ok, what about Buck Roger's Deep Space Shuttle?. We were supposed to launch that in 1999... Like 20 years after the ones we just retired.

If only we had a plan for recurring orbital missions... A "space pickup" that would launch on a regular basis to make pit stops for things like extra helium.

To think how many multi-decade projects like this will "rot on the vine".

My point is that copyright protects COPYING. Things like the character "Mickey Mouse" and his likeness have other protections if they remain in use.

I think being partly in public domain has worked out OK for Cthulhu. Part of the works "accidentally" fell into PD (darn Munchkin cultists) and the remaining works are owned by several different companies. Surely of the masters of Dark, Lawyering Arts can negotiate such terrain the Mouse's lawyers would be just fine.

Yet another reason to vote Cthulhu! Although I prefer overlords with noodly appendages and not tentacles.

Mickey Mouse would still be firmly under TRADEMARK for a long time. That would mean you could copy early Mickey clips on YouTube all day, or use them for mashuos and such... but YOU couldn't MARKET "Mickey Mouse" stuff because he's still running Disney and making merchandise.

What the summary indicates is that "lost" INDIVIDUAL authors will soon LOSE protections... Because COMPANIES don't like a grandkid getting money at the 90 year mark. And "orphan" works will probably revert to publishers that last printed them... So most likely a bunch of PD stuff will get snatched back into "publisher/broadcaster" copyright.

The end result will certainly be worse... Did the summary mention ANYTHING about people that buy and use Copyrighted works? It's going to be discussion on how to "lock it up" better.. Not produce more USEFUL WORKS.

The root of the problem is that Gates set the company to run business units like mini-startups... With super-tough managers over each one. Then Gates stepped back and provided the money and cheerleading. The problem is that the culture developed of the business unit managers all stabbing EACH OTHER in the back to get ahead. So Office, servers, IE, and Windows units are all to some extent fighting for turf because Gates gave it to two different groups, or technology changed. Ballmer is just continuing what he was taught.

Steve Jobs took the opposite approach (but only after he was kicked out and came back). If a product or service wasn't worth SETVE'S time then it was "coasting" or cut. Steve built Apple around its CEO paying attention to every detail of new products... And ATTENTION is limited and expensive.

The idea to chop Microsoft into thirds is Past time. Microsoft should have done it five to ten years ago when they were fighting breaking up. Now, they are fighting to be interesting at all. They need to cut or spinoff technologies.. But they need a CEO that LOVES THEIR PRODUCTS. If anything THAT is what made Steve-notes so special... The CEO of the company knew the product inside out and was excited and loved it! Microsoft needs to shed and pair down until that is true of their products and CEO.

In the high end server market IBM is the last of the old-school giants. They have support that will pull parts out of their test machines and hand drive them to you if those big iron boxes break. Of course on big iron "break" means a board is dead.., the machine itself is usually still running, just slower. If you find a real software bug, you can end up with the programmer (or the guy who SITS next to him) for that code looking at your machine himself. You are THAT higher up on the food chain than you eould ever see from WinTel.

It takes Apple-sized margin to deliver that kind of service. Not many are willing to pay for it. You also compensate with really small IT departments. My IT department had about 3 admins and a few managers, mostly for self-written app support. You have departments wher 30 year-olds are the NEW kids and hard to find. It's totally the opposite of the "throw everybody at everything" world if Googles and Facebooks.... We rarely work weekends.. Or at least not because of the "system".

Usually the government sends a phonebook of paperwork first... With "comply or close" on the cover.

Guy is choosing to close cause he can't possibly meet the demands. This is how "industry insiders" stay ahead.. With rules so complex it takes 40 people to follow them. With computers though it takes 40 people if you have 1000 accounts or 10,000,000.

PayPal and Facebook broke those laws for a long time too. The only difference between Bitcoin and PayPal is that "nobody owns" Bitcoin, do it can't claim the government is damaging business.

That's HFT, or at least the principal. Economically we allow HFT because each of your trades will be with somebody that needs to move bitcoins. That actually helps the system because they don't have to wait when they need to exchange. Get enough people doing it and it prevents big swings when big spenders try breaking things.

Well in the STRICT letters on the page it says people have a right to "arms" it says nothing about fingers or hands!!! (Just like "arms" means guns and only guns, but not knives, nunchuks, or daggers) So crazy people can't have FEET! Then they can't go far.

That's not entirely correct, but the point stands. Bitcoin is modeled after a "perfect" Gold Standard. Under a Gold Standard, $1 earned NOW is still $1 later. Inflation or deflation is caused by changing the AMOUNT of goods and services per gold coin. So when guys like Forbes say Bitcoin makes no sense, they don't UNDERSTAND what the Gold Standard is either.

The main difference is that Bitcoin should never allow fractional reserve banking... Or loaning more money than YOU OWN NOW. Under the Gold Standard, you still had inflation, just more slowly. We stopped being on the Gold standard because there were 3-4x the amount of TRANSACTION occurring than all the Gold Available. Bitcoin requires every transaction to "add up" so a Bitcoin NOW is worth MORE goods or services later when more people use bitcoins.

Bitcoin is probably hated by bankers, because modern "usury=profits=inflation" doesn't work. In our current system, If you keep money, they just make more, nobody has to negotiate with you to get the money, YOUR DOLLAR NOW just gets devalued when the bank loans it out multiple times for profit.

I think this is really the break point for the bigger guys like IBM. That's why it's discussed now.

The horse is long out if the barn. For companies like IBM they have moved "outsourcing" in India to being just like an office across the country. IBM has basically bet the company on US sales forces selling Indian labor. You get a "US contact" for the first few months, but all the work is done by Indians.

I guess if you can admin your server room from your bed at 3am (and still work at 8am) your company can just pay an Indian guy to be awake at 3am and don't need you. The REAL money is in Project Management... Which quite ironically is not part of the MBA track-- to BUILD NEW THINGS? Of course Project Management is the skill of making yourself replaceable.. So the fact IT has embraced it is really going to bite us in the ass.

I would agree the Bitcoin market is irrational, but the MINING operation has value in that Bitcoin mining is what authenticates the transactions and keeps the currency in circulation. Bitcoin mining also serves as an accountant and auditor of the marketplace.. Passing to a number of servers the code that tracks transactions. So there is "inate" value to running a Bitcoin mining operation because Bitcoin customers NEED IT. On fact there is a mechanism to shift the servers from "free mining" to "paid accounting" (with a user paying a transaction fee based on processong time) as new bitcoins run out in 70 more years.

As people build super fast chips NOW to mine, they reduce the electric cost so when the market moves to transaction fees, prices will be very low.

I agree the market is crazy right now. Although basing a discussion on news articles is like basing the housing bubble on house flipping shows. But like the housing bubble, there are real winners.. While all the house flippers and bankers were high on freshly inked mortgage fumes, HOME DEPOT (and buddies) made out like bandits selling excess numbers of tools and supplies to all the people that failed at flipping, or simply wanted to play by "adding value" with home projects. The Bitcoin miners provide a chance and money to do interesting Maths in open source software normally reserved for "HDT Quants" in Wall Street basements. Having an open source problem helps chip makers learn to build specialized chips that would normally not be seen by the public.

So like all "Free Market" activities it provides value, opportunity, and/or recreation even if it shut down tomorrow.

It's no more irrational than the price of Crude Oil, or Comic Books.... In fact Bitcoin is designed so a constant flow of new coins enter the system daily. So if people were rational, 100 people could mine the bitcoins daily and it would be just fine.

Bitcoin obviously models the REAL markets and was created as a math geek/financial conservative joke on EVERYBODY. It models BEHAVIORS. Like the mortgage bubble, or HFT perfectly... It shows how ABSURD many of the things we allow bankers and investors to do every day really are. As a math game, its worth looking at just for that alone.