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Your rant makes little sense - almost everyone upthread was talking about C/C++, not just C. They were contrasting C/C++ to things like C# and Java.

So you've seen intended ones?

I hate to break it to you, but the original Pentium is now obsolete. Compiling for a specific CPU variant doesn't help much these days. I'm also unaware of any JIT compiler that adjusts the code for available RAM. You might have a point about the phase of the moon.

Basically you're citing the standard tropes used in defense of JIT. Theoretically it can make some difference, but when I ask for benchmarks showing code on a JIT running faster than straight-to-binary, all I hear is crickets.

Before the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, the restriction was that patents that came from federally funded research had to be assigned to the feds. Worked fine. Repeal Bayh-Dole and it will work again. If BU or any other school doesn't like it, they can refuse to accept federal funding. What option do you think they'll choose?

Take your own advice - the appropriate history is before the Bayh–Dole Act. It worked fine before 1980, though according to you, the people who thought it worked fine must have been 12 y.o or idiots. Funny how such people managed to do important academic research.

It hasn't been enough in many years, at least here in the US for research funding. There is loads of federal funding for research, and sometimes from companies and foundations. That's fine by me, but universities using "intellectual property" is exactly the opposite of what they should do.

P.S. What country are you from? "Uni's" isn't American slang, so I'd guess it's not the US. I ask because I'm curious what the situation is in your country.

Blame the Bayh–Dole Act. When it was passed, it seemed to make sense. It had wide support - Bayh and Dole were on very opposite sides of the aisle. In practice it's meant that universities are more worried about protecting their "intellectual property" than about publishing and disseminating research results. For that reason a lot of academic researchers are unhappy about it too. It's time to take what turned out to be a bad ides and ditch it. Universities shouldn't be run the way for-profit companies are.

Are you referring to the type of public entity that is tax exempt and gets lots of federal funds? Drop that and maybe you have a point.

Apple, Microsoft, Dell, BlackBerry, Nokia, etc. don't make LED's, they buy them . Hence they're customers. Does this mean that the absurd idea of suing customers in addition to manufacturers has been accepted? Patent trolling is bad, but this is just plain nuts.

Screw guillotines - I think the rich who feel they're so entitled should be made to live on a minimum wage income for the rest of their lives. It's less messy, and far more poetic justice.

Thank you for being so honest about this. Seriously - absolutely no snark meant.

I wish they'd at least make that harder to do. It's so easy to follow the money that it's insulting. Instead of a "let's try to hide it" approach it's a "fuck you, we don't care what you think".

What a clever metaphor. Is it supposed to mean something, or is it just a pathetic way to make your argument seem more scientific? To anybody who is dumb enough to buy it, it also has the propaganda effect of making it seem as inevitable as entropy, when in reality it's just the opposite - a matter of policies conceived by politically powerful people.

Why?

Another myth comforting to free traders. There is no reason that China, for example, can't grow on the basis of internal consumption, just as the US did. I also find it an astounding coincidence that policies which are supposed to benefit the 3rd world, just happen to do so in a way that benefits the already rich in the developed world. There are other approaches, but I assure you that one which doesn't enrich the wealthy will never be enacted.

Problem: there really is no such thing as an American company anymore. Also, why should I care whether IBM or Infosys executives and major stock holders get rich? Either way, I'm still out of a job.

AMA = Australian Medical Association?

Note to non-Americans: the US AMA is the American Medical Association, which is a union with some peer review journals.