Thank you USPTO for gifting another piece of my mind to someone else. If I sell you the moon, does it then belong to you, or are you just an idiot for paying for it?

I am somewhat less confident that Google's money will necessarily prevail. Between the arrogance of the mafiAA, the ignorance of congress, and the depth of their affair together, I wouldn't put it past them to torch the tech industry in a misguided moral stand to preserve what they see as the last stand of art. I'd really like to hear any non-feeling-based arguments about who is likely to actually prevail here. Got any?

How would you propose to "understand" a natural phenomenon better than building a model that explains empirical observations? I argue that building a model that can make accurate predictions is the very definition of understanding something.

First, I say things like that, and I do not pirate music. Please stop insulting us with misguided generalizations. Second, Copyright violation is not theft--it is Copyright violation. Vandalism is not murder. Tax evasion is not littering. I can be specific about a crime without condoning either of them. Third, I most certainly do have a right to own it. By submitting to allow the government to regulate my intellect for a limited time, I have paid the price for that music, even if I never produce it myself. This contribution is what enables artists to sell their music, and it is most certainly a financial contribution. Thus, their works are rightly works-for-hire to the public. Fourth, I do produce music. Fifth, the "limited time" currently associated with Copyright law is not reasonable. As it does not terminate in my lifetime, Copyright law asks me to pay for something I will never receive. If taxation without representation is a violation of unalienable rights, then this certainly is as well. How far do you think people are obligated to tolerate a government that fails to respect their rights?

Yes. I am an innovator. To build something truly useful, I must build upon the work of at least twelve others. If I have to pay royalties to them all, there's no way the royalties I collect will ever cover it. But I don't do it for the money. I do it because I am an innovator. I will innovate if I am compensate. I will innovate if I am not compensated. I will innovate even if I have to pay for the privilege of using my own brain. Google has demonstrated that they are (to some extent) of the same stock as me, and I think we'd all make more progress if we could pursue our passion to innovate without fear. If those who only innovate for money abandoned the game, that's okay with me--they are lousy innovators anyway.

I'm 36. I grew up on BASIC. Now I prefer C++. Two days ago someone asked me to write a web-app in PHP. I had never used it before, but I said "no problem". About 500 Google searches later, I'm a PHP expert and I'm just putting the finishing touches on my web-app. If you can't learn any more, you're not a programmer any more.

quote by Cameron:

Article title:

Wahoo! just 60? more years until science and the useful arts will benefit from this tremendous innovation as it finally falls into the public domain.

Geeks suing a lawyer--Great idea! And let's hire a bunch of lawyers to write software and configure firewalls!

Like immunizations, there are risks on both sides, and only the rational side will cite both and then leave people to make an informed decision. Ranting exclusively about only one side is frankly obnoxious and unhelpful to anyone.

I call BS. Yeah, I know that prior art isn't the problem they're trying to solve with this new first-to-file rule. I know they say these new rules won't prevent patents from being invalidated. And I'm sure that these rules will be applied precisely for the intended purpose--after all, surely no one would ever try to abuse the patent system for monetary gain without actually contributing to science or the useful arts. But IRL, they're calling it "first-to-file", and the only assurance we have that prior art will still be relevant are the assurances of people who are trying to push the new rule through. I smell disingenuity.

Am I the only one who read this to mean that Apple had suddenly come to their senses about DRM? I was so excited! Alas, these are not jail-broken phones. They remain firmly behind the iron bars of Apple telling you what you are and are not allowed to do with the hardware you bought, even though the carrier is no longer involved to require it.

AV is like installing a house-fly chasing robot. It's big and often gets in the way, but it keeps the fly population in your house small. On proprietary platforms, AV is critical because you cannot close the windows through which they enter. On open platforms, it's a stupid idea. Just close the stupid hole! Why would anyone put up with AV? It's as annoying as what it protects you from, and the days when it was a good thing have passed.

They are valuable because they have several desirable properties. Scarcity is one of these properties, but you have forgotten several others. They are easy to exchange. They are difficult to track. They do not depend on a centralized server or organization. There is definitely demand for these properties, and so far, BitCoins are the only thing supplying them. That sounds like "value" to me.

I am not saying they will continue to go up in value. The market could be flooded with competitors at any moment since they whole thing is open source. I'm just saying that it is supplying something that real people really want.

Since the summary is somewhat ...lacking, here's my attempt to translate it. (Disclaimer: I am not a neuroscientist, and I really only skimmed it anyway.)

"We studied the olfactory system of locusts, and found that all of the smell information seems to pass through a single neuron with a lot of incoming connections. This single neuron does not send outgoing signals in spikes as most other neurons do, but instead releases a chemical that suppresses other neurons. It uses this method to sort-of "average" all of the incoming signals together. Also, this system involves a feedback loop. We think that this whole arrangement is set up to generate sparse-codes, which is our favorite way to reduce information down to a small number of dimensional values. We hope that mammals use similar systems, and that this might eventually help lead to an understanding of how brains reduce large amounts of information into small concepts."