As an independent software developer, how can I avoid getting dragged into a patent lawsuit? How can I leverage my rights to ensure others aren't exploiting my patents?

As a middle management cog in a large organization, how can I impress the importance of patents on the executive leadership? How can I work with our console on ensuring that our creations are correctly patented? And what steps should I be taking to minimize our risk of being sued?

-Rick

He made a poor choice, he ignored others' warnings, and he has to live with the repercussions of it.

He didn't commit the crime. He wasn't "asking for it". He isn't to blame for someone else's bad behavior.

But he's still stupid.

He should be able to walk through his neighborhood loaded with easily fenced jewelry. Young women should be able to go to parties without worrying about getting drugged. Investors should be able to give money to financial investors without getting suckered into losing it all.

But that's not the world we live in. And yeah, we continue to teach our kids to no steal, to not rape, to not con. But the world shapes them, and they will make poor decisions at some point in time. So we also teach them to think defensively, to keep their valuables locked up, to hang out with trusted friend, and to thoroughly investigate anyone who is advertising a 10% return in a down market.

Making my child wear a seatbelt is not blaming him for the drunk driver that hit the car.

-Rick

We know some details about the nurse that was infected in spain: She touched her face with her hands before disinfecting them.

Yes, protocol wasn't followed. But here's the point: You need to follow protocol 100% of the time to be safe. You only need to make one mistake to be infected. For a virus with such a crazy lethality rate, that's not good. Treating an ebola patient is a lot like playing russian roulette.

Very few of the people who are now dead licked it. Yes, the media loves fear stories and it's overblown, but you're underblowing it.

Who thought that bringing Ebola patients into countries not yet infected was a smart idea? Apparently, the thought of an american dying in Africa like all those niggers was too much for someone to stand, yes? Newsflash: The virus isn't racist, it doesn't give a fuck if you're a rich american or a starving african.

We have the same in Europe. At least one health care worker here has been infected and will probably die because someone thought it's smart to bring people infected with a 90% lethality virus home for treatment. Good job.

We cannot contain these viruses, and our assumption that we in the west are better than those primitives in Africa and we will certain contain it to the hospital wards has been smashed. Like basically anyone who's not an idiot could have guessed.

(and for the mentally challenged readers: Of course my use of "niggers" and "primitives" is to outline the very hubris I criticise. If you think I'm a racist, you're projecting too much of yourself into my words...)

The moment I get spam about Kickstarter projects, I'll delete my account there. Who else?

Kickstarter is a cool concept, but one of the things that made it cool is that at its core, it has this idea of presenting your idea and letting people come to you. The more you reverse it, by "reaching out" (marketing speak) aka spamming (real human speak) people with your project, the more it is simply and advertisement platform. And nobody gives a flying fuck about advertisement platforms, as we can see from the absence of the Internet equivalent of the shopping channel.

I'm from Germany. Ever since it was leaked that the NSA was spying so extensively on our government that by international standards it could reasonably be considered an act of war, I wonder what it'll take for our USA-lapdog chancellor to grow a spine and do more than giving Obama a stern talk.

I propose we give out Peer Block update subscriptions to all promising youngsters as a means of encouraging safe downloading and in this way precluding only the best liars from becoming FBI cogs.

Remember Bill Hicks, that comedian who made fun of Jim Fix, the health-nut with a heart condition who died at the age of 52? Used to smoke, drink to excess, and make fun of people who took care of themselves? Died of cancer at the age of 32.

Bad idea. Downhill is harder on the knees and quads than running flat. I would rather run uphill over distance than the equivalent downhill any day. It's more work, but far less damaging.

And here I was watching from Europe thinking that this question had been settled years ago. Nobody else in the world is taking the polygraph seriously, it's a leftover from the time shortly after WW2 when too optimistic pseudo-scientists (mostly, some scientists as well) thought very soon now technology will solve every problem of the human race.

Especially when you don't need to know the exact number and you need a visual indicator that can be recognized at a glance.

Speedometers, tachometers, load balance reporting, etc...

I don't need to know the exact mbps that is currently getting pulled off my server, I need to know at a glance if my load is going into the red. I don't have the time to take my eyes off the road to read that I am traveling at 55.4 MPH @ 2571 RPMs, I just need to know that my needle is pointing up and left, and that my tach isn't pointing straight up.

That said, I want digital values for all of those things, streaming in real time through the appropriate systems, feeding logs, and populating data warehouses for later analysis.

-Rick

At 10 years, you are likely at the very brink of the lifespan of the battery pack.

The 60khw battery pack (since we're debating the bottom end options here) gets ~200 miles per charge. I would anticipate that would drop off over the 10 year life span we're looking at, but I don't have hard numbers on it.

1 kwh in Wisconsin costs ~13.1 cents. So roughly $7.86 full per charge (~4c per mile).

Comparatively, I'm spending ~10c per mile on fuel for my Golf TDI.

Figure ~13,000 miles driven per year by your average American. $520 for the Tesla, $1300 for the Golf. So you come out ahead, on average, $780 a year. Over 10 years, the savings on fuel is roughly half of the $15,000 you mentioned, assuming it can maintain a 200 mile charge for the 10 year lifespan.

But, you also have to look at the costs of the loan. A $70,000 car note over 5 years is going to cost ~$10,200 in interest. Compared to a $22k car (VW Golf TDI) where that same 5 year note is going to cost ~$3,200.

So the fuel savings ($7800) is almost entirely wiped out by the additional interest cost ($7000).

There are other savings, probably a hundred dollars a year in oil changes, the 100,000 mile timing belt ($800), but most of the other maintenance matches between the two cars.

There is really nothing here that makes it easier to swallow. If you want a $70k automobile as an upper-middle income household of 4, you will need to make radical spending changes and/or live paycheck to paycheck on the edge of your finances.

Wait for the kids to go off to college and buy one for your mid-life crisis.

-Rick

Wow.. just, massive logic fail. That's not even a comparison. Advocating for the right to make your own choice regarding your life is nothing like being forced to kill yourself. I guess here we see some insight into the twisted perceptions of greenpeace whackos.