Mod parent up.

In many cases the holder of a patent is not the first person to discover a non-obvious meme (meme in the classic sense). The patent holder is the first to file, but not the first to discover. Finally, many a patent exists which should not. For instance many should never have been issued because the amount of existing prior art at the time the patent was granted should have invalidated it. The patent system is broken and this case is evidence of that.

Finally, how about this brilliant idea? How about the patent office's job gets changed? How about we as a society say, "Let's make the patent office's job more helpful to every person on the planet?" We could organize our labor in our own best interests. Funny how we don't do that.

How about its new job is to document, catalog and distribute patent knowledge to the whole human race? It doesn't hoard knowledge. Its job is to track science and engineering innovation and make sure other interested parties are kept informed of new developments in their fields. It would be a world library of human engineering knowledge. Then we could focus collectively on spreading our beautiful and terrible species throughout the known universe.

Or we can continue to be crabs in a pot -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality

What?

If you were to have copyrighted, controlled and monetized Linux to acquire incredible wealth and therefore had the philanthropic power of an Andrew Carnegie (or Bill Gates) what cause or causes would you personally want to champion with your wealth?

American English now considers "funner" a proper word. Do I need to say more?

Would you like to purchase an extended warrantee on your shopping in peace experience?

We live somewhere with winter. Freezing water cracks roads. I am amazed by how nice the roads are in California, Arizona and Florida. The mid-west, however, is a shit road central.

Snow sucks. Unless you are a child and then it is the best free toy ever.

That's me. What do you need?

I think calling people "Slashdot's dick community" is rude and in doing so, you have undermined your own argument about rude behavior.

I find the "fixed that for you" to be a humorous and desirable part of /. discussion and feel it would be a loss if no one ever used that format to respond to posts. It can be poignant and funny when done well. It can be rude, however I rarely sense intended malice or insult when it is used.

I do not find calling people "dick" to be a humorous or desirable part of /. discussion. I most often sense malice and insult when "dick" is used.

Is it 1234?

Are you for or against "fixed that for you"? At first blush, I want to guess that you don't like that phrase but, if that were so your response would be so hypocritical I wasn't sure.

Would you please clarify?

I think you are trolling at this point.

Asking your motivation for a decision that you made and then complained about is not me placing blame. I was trying to get you to take ownership of your own actions. You installed Gnome and then complained about the size of Gnome. Who else could possibly be responsible for your decision to use it?

The issue being debated was large data sizes when updating the OS. Are you saying that Windows users don't have huge updates to keep their systems current? Are you serious?

Most people that buy computers do want all the complexity hidden. They should use Windows and/or Mac OS. Casual users SHOULD NOT USE LINUX!

Linux is not for casual users just as custom muscle cars are not for casual drivers. I haven't used a Linux distro in the last 8 years that installed Gnome or KDE by default. If you don't use it either why did you complain about it? Were you consciously creating a strawman argument? Were you trolling?

There are many free Linux distros which install neither KDE or Gnome by default. It might sound incredible but it's true.

You can tweet via SMS. I know this and I hate twitter.

You do realize that suits and ties are dress-up costumes. They are in no way functional or necessary. Just like judge's robes are costumes.

Business and law both rely on a great deal of theatrics to present the image of legitimacy. And these theatrics are enough for people like grandma and you that would prefer to make snap judgments based on illogical assumptions in place of actually thinking.

Your apathy and love of tradition is holding the world back. Please begin to question the basic tenants of Western civilization so we can fix it before it is too late.

The Microsoft anti-trust trial?

Worked in cable once upon a time. People shooting the cables is relatively common and it is typically an intentional act. There is a large percentage of the population that hates the cable company.