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Comment Re: Abolish software patents (Score 1) 204

Patents are not intended to stimulate others to innovate - only to protect those who have already innovated.
If I innovate then I have the knowledge that if I patent it I can protect my creation from being stolen by others while I have the ability to exclusively benefit from it.

Unfortunately in these days patents do not protect those who innovate, only those who legislate.

Comment Re:Suggestion: the EU should harmonize copyright t (Score 1) 154

We should distinguish between the end user and a commerical user.
While I don't think there is much to be made from the early Beatles albums (first 2 albums are now over 50 years old), I don't think anyone should be allowed to use one of those tracks in movies, adverts, etc without permission or payment.

So 50 years for sales, 70 years for commercial re-use.

Comment Re:Have the legal questions been tested? (Score 1) 134

As the drone is an aircraft engaged in commerce then this applies:
18 USC 32 - Destruction of aircraft or aircraft facilities
a) Whoever willfully—
(1) sets fire to, damages, destroys, disables, or wrecks any aircraft in the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States or any civil aircraft used, operated, or employed in interstate, overseas, or foreign air commerce;
(8) attempts or conspires to do anything prohibited under paragraphs (1) through (7) of this subsection;

shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years or both.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/32

Now you could argue that the as the drone is local that it is not performing interstate commerce and so it would not be liable under this federal law, but if the drone is foreign registered then it is covered under a later clause.

Comment Re:I think... (Score 1) 425

IF GM had collapsed then the remains would have been picked over by the other main car manufacturers and you'd have ended up with the brands being owned by VW, Fiat, TATA, etc. Not good for the America.

Although Fiat already has strong links with Chrysler (they basically own it)

Comment Re:Hardly the same thing (Score 2) 239

All US Embassy ban all civilians from bringing in consumer electronic devices.
From: http://london.usembassy.gov/ukembmap.html
"PLEASE DO NOT bring Electronic devices such as mobile phones, Blackberries, iPods, iPads, notebook computers, PDAs, headsets, remote-entry automobile key "fobs" or anything with a power plug or battery, as they are not allowed within the Embassy grounds."

Comment Re:The US, for all its power, hasn't plugged the l (Score 1) 328

Snowden is no longer leaking docs, and hasn't since the original handover.
Its the journalists (Glen Greenwald & Laura Poitras) he handed the docs to who have been trickling out the docs.

They have stated that they have multiple copies in multiple locations and the intercept at Heathrow Airport of Glen Greenwald's partner, David Miranda, where the British confiscated USB drives containing copies of classifed materials did not hinder their access to the material.

(Who gives their partner a bunch of classified docs and then asks them to fly via one of the USA's closest allies and not expect them to get stopped?)

Comment Re:You've got to spot them first (Score 1) 163

If an asteroid is deflected to avoid a collision with earth then its orbit is now changed. Where previously it might have transited the asteroid belt without colliding with another object, there is now the risk that on its new orbit it might hit something else.

While the risk of collison is very minor, it is still there, and we might be trading an impact now for one or more in the future.

Either way - we need to improve our detection of these objects, we've got some of the way there over the last 30 years, but there are still a lot of objects out there, and we only need to miss one to get wiped out.

Scott Manley's asteroid discovery video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONUSP23cmAE

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