But the problem is that U.S. court precedent has mostly considered the idea that melody is the primary determinant of copyright. For better or for worse, that's generally the standard. Now, whether this particular arrangement is the earliest to contain proper notice and copyright registration, as well as a properly filed renewal (as was required during that period)... well these are all interesting questions.

The claim to copyright today is completely bogus. But the specific piano arrangement is legally irrelevant for the copyright claim, only the melody and proper copyright for any fixed publication of that melody.

Well, "human nature" is somewhat malleable by social constructs. So I wouldn't say "never." But there are significant roadblocks.

For example, John Maynard Keynes predicted that only workaholics would be working over 15 hours per week by 2030. We don't really seem to be on that path, despite the fact that worker productivity has basically quadrupled in the U.S. since 1950. (I know some people are going to argue over how accurate this claim is -- but the exact numbers don't matter so much. It's undisputed among economists that worker productivity has gone up significantly over the past 75 years.)

We could all be working 10 hours per week and living with a similar economic standard of living to 1950. Personally, I'd be fine with that, though I know many people wouldn't.

Or we could be less contentious and go back the productivity of 1975 or so... and basically keep our current standard of living for middle classes, but just pay rich people less. Alas, we've chosen greed over spare time.

That's probably part of it. But I also think it probably has to do with "ways of thinking." A person who chooses engineering as a major often tends to "think a little differently" from one who chooses math and physics, for example -- some people are more oriented toward "practical" solutions, while others are more interested in abstractions and "theory." (Obviously these are broad stereotypes, but they do have some basis as generalizations for many people.)

Even more extreme divides in "ways of thinking" come about when you start comparing things like religious studies to engineering or whatever. The people who are attracted to these majors have very different outlooks on the world. It's NOT surprising at all that they'd look for a spouse with a similar worldview.

Relationships are also about communication. We often hear jokes on Slashdot about the problems "nerds" have communicating with others, so again it's unsurprising that people who "talk the same language" will be attracted to each other.

So, I really take issue with the conclusion here, as TFS says:

No, no, NO. Your choice of major won't "unwittingly" decide your spouse -- your choice of major is partly determined by who you are, how you think, how you communicate, and what your interests are. People who have very particular ways of thinking (particularly ones that lead them to cross stereotypical gender boundaries, like female engineers or male nurses) will probably find it harder to find compatible spouses among the more "generic" general population.

Or, to put it another way, if you're already predisposed toward majoring in something like religious studies, simply choosing to be an engineering major isn't going to stop you from thinking deeply about religious issues. And you'll probably continue to want a spouse who is at least somewhat interested in thinking about those issues too (engineer or not). The causality here isn't only the major -- it's the reason why people choose their majors in the first place.

Also, there's the implicit assumption that all arguments can be resolved by "facts." In the real world, facts require interpretation and context. If you want to resolve a question like "Was person X at location Y at time Z?" then the facts needed to come to an answer usually have a relatively straightforward interpretation.

But questions like "Did person X cause Y?" or "Is person X responsible/culpable for issue Y?" are not often resolvable by appeals to facts. Both sides can provide their "facts," but who wins the argument often is a matter of interpretation.

And that's often where the "fact" problem comes in -- similar to arguments on Slashdot, it's often easy for someone to produce a battery of "facts" to support an argument. But if that person is biased and trying to win an argument, he/she may deliberately choose facts in a selective manner... which may significantly distort the truth.

Being able to verify "facts" is only a small part of determining "truth" in most circumstances. If most arguments could easily be resolved simply by collecting facts, we'd have no need for a judicial system, for example -- we could just have a simple legal "scoresheet," tally up the "facts," and then we know the "truth" which can determine guilt or culpability or whatever.

In the real world, "lying" is a much more complex behavior than simply stating demonstrably false facts -- it involves deliberate omissions of relevant facts or additions of irrelevant facts which can lead to misleading conclusions. Technology does much less to mitigate those latter concerns: in fact, with the proliferation of more and more data, it can make it harder to sift through what is actually relevant and irrelevant to answer a particular question.

I know this is sarcasm, but I don't understand how this stuff gets modded up as "insightful."

Being an employee or member of a corporation in no way absolves an individual of CRIMINAL responsibility. Many corporate employees and executives have gone to jail over the years when they have committed criminal acts in the name of a corporation. In fact, being part of a corporation often opens up people to "conspiracy" charges, even if they aren't individually culpable, so being a corporate executive actually can open more avenues to prosecution.

Of course the reality is that executives are less likely to be convicted of serious crimes -- but that's because they're often rich and can afford better lawyers, not because they are legally less responsible for criminal action.

In any case, this was NOT a criminal action, so your misleading statement is completely irrelevant. This was a civil lawsuit, and this woman probably received significantly more in monetary damages than she would have if an individual had harassed her... so once again, it seems the corporation actually opens up a greater avenue for legal culpability than for an individual.

Could you also have done it when you were 117 years old? I suspect she may have had other issues by then (e.g. unsteady hands, imprecise coordination) that may have complicated it. Anyhow, this is what her doctor said, which was reported in many media articles. So choose whether to believe it or not... not that it matters that much.

Except your "pure, selfless ethics" sounds a bit too much like egotistical BS in places.

Every doctor is not "God's gift to humanity." Unless you are in the top 5% or whatever of physicians -- and most doctors obviously aren't -- this is egotistical nonsense. If you're really worried that your colleagues do crappy work, get a better job.

This is a pervasive staffing issue in medicine. Except in times of war or unexpected epidemics (or if you're a true specialist with an emergency situation), there is no reason this crap should be a concern. If it is, it points to how broken the medical system is... train more doctors. Hire more doctors. Given how people's lives depend on medical care, doctors and hospitals that are understaffed are the ones who are operating under pervasively "unethical" conditions... there's nothing "selfless" about this.

Oh, good lord. Yes, those poor future patients who will never have the good fortune to experience the great glory of your magnificence. Again, unless you truly are one of the best doctors in your generation (and changes are that you AREN'T) this is a preposterous argument.

If this is the kind of egomaniacal insanity that passes for "selfless ethics" in medicine, doctors really need to get a clue about their own limitations and abilities. I know quite a few doctors, and I've rarely met one who would be justified in this sort of thinking.

This is certainly true. Although they don't like to admit it, the medical field is full of a lot of "lore" that has never really been tested scientifically to produce better results. From the residency hazing to the whole "white-coat ceremony" weirdness, becoming a doctor still has some of the odd trappings of entering into a medieval cult or something.

The problem is that deviating from past tradition is seen as inherently risky for people who deal with "life and death," so whether it's changing training routines or questioning some standard clinical practice, it's really hard to change things... which is one of the reasons for the rise in so-called "evidence-based medicine" in recent decades. I know we all want to believe that medicine is scientifically rigorous, but there are often severe obstacles to achieving scientific rigor once a practice has caught on in the medical profession -- because refusing the "standard treatment" might be unethical, even if that treatment was adopted after uncontrolled non-randomized tests that had statistically questionable success.

I have great respect for doctors, who generally work hard and care greatly about their patients. But the profession and practice is severely broken and weighed down with bizarre (even mystical) baggage about how better doctors come from weird crap... like the hazing and long hours.

Uh, I know you were trying to be funny -- but the very article you linked explains that she stopped smoking at age 117. Wikipedia doesn't say why, but I recall reading an article years ago which said it was because she had gone blind and was unable to light her own cigarettes -- and was too vain to ask others to do it for her.

Also, no offense to Harvard, but Harvard is NOT generally known for its engineering programs. Just in the past couple of years, Harvard has started to try to make a shift there, but generally Harvard was a place to go for liberal arts, econ, and hard sciences. There's a much better engineering school "down the road" in Cambridge that's much better known for engineering. (And that school -- MIT -- is known to make fun of Harvard all of the time for its lack of engineering skills.)

I'm not saying these Harvard kids aren't smart -- I'm sure they are. But you're looking at a heat transfer kind of class intended for engineering students who actually wouldn't take a better heat transfer class... at a school that traditionally has downplayed engineering. (Harvard historically disliked "practical" training in college -- that was professional schools, not an undergrad liberal arts degree.)

Wow. Just wow. Brisket is one of the most flavorful and delicious cuts of meat. It's cheap because it requires a lot of prep, not because it's not "good." That's pretty typical for meat -- the stuff you can just throw on a grill and cook in 5 minutes: that's expensive. The stuff that's also ridiculously flavorful and beefy but which takes at least 12 hours of careful cooking (usually because it's tough and has lots of connective tissue, not because it doesn't have great flavor)... well, that's cheap, because rich people are lazy, I guess.

I love a high-quality ribeye. But if you give me a good-quality smoker and sufficient time, I'd choose brisket over any steak any day. If you haven't had slow-smoked brisket that made you cry because it was so awesome, you have no business commenting on this article.

It could be both... and even if it is the latter, that doesn't necessarily mean the domain was registered in "bad faith," which is a legal standard for cybersquatting. Are you suggesting that trademarks should extend not only to an actual trademarked name, but to all conceivable misspellings or abbreviated versions, etc.? That's not the legal standard... nor should it be. Trademarks are already a fairly broad restriction on public freedom, and they should only be extended beyond the actual name when there's an intent to deceive or to profit by confusion with the "real" name.

Why? He's a guy who has had a domain for 14 years, appears to actually use it for something, and apparently any connection to a real world trademark is either so tenuous that no action has been taken so far or the trademarked name actually postdates his website, so the threat to his private website is new.

In any case, it sounds to me that it's more likely the poster is a typical Slashdot paranoid... worried about a threat that probably isn't significant.