Time for us students to get a tuition discount?

What I've always wondered is how do they come up with these numbers. If the revenue raises by that number over adding the patented tech on the standard products, then it would be fair, as we are only taking the money the transgressor made. Potentially multiplying that by 3 as a deterrent for willful infraction seems also reasonable, else every company would then just infringe on the chance it does not get caught.

The article does mention 2.3 billion chips sold. That leaves us with a fee of $0.508 per chip sold. The number seems quite steep to me, since such a number seems to me probably closer to the retail price for the whole chip. Which is nuts... does anybody know how much revenue Marvell gets per chip?

This is a good point. At the very least, legislation should be in place to guarantee that any advertising uses the correct word. I would like to see the "buy" button replaced by the "licence" button on every digital store and see what impact that actually has. Anything else is just a con.

True. But a lot of old content, ironically, can't be found/purchased either. So 600x400 is better than 0x0.

Reading around and/or having a mentor. There is the people that want to get better and others who just want to get something done, even if they realize they have no idea what is going on.

Actually you don't lose context at all. The start menu is already out of context with whatever task is being done, if any. It's not that you need to look at the words in your document or check the values in your spreadsheet to use the menu. On the contrary, it is usually part of initiating a new task or subtask, and hiding unrelated UI could actually be an improvement. The context-switch happens anyway.

I think you are looking into this from the wrong perspective. I just moved into the US 2 years ago from one of those countries you mention (where this kind of thing just does not happen). For me is not about a potential ban, is that banned or not I see no reason to want to have a gun at all. What I've found extremely peculiar of the US is people's mentality and attitude. I see soldiers for instance as people doing a regrettably necessary job in the potential defense of the country. Here they seem to be "heroes" (although what cause they follow seems foggy), bringing purification by fire and salvation to others in some sort of capitalism/democracy jihad. No "defense" that I have seen. And that is just a single example.

There are all kinds of justifications, but the bottom line is that people in the US see VIOLENCE AS A VALID WAY to "solve" issues, instead of something to be shunned and avoided at all costs. I can't stress that enough. Diminishing the damage potential or availability of the tools of violence is a nice step, but does not address the real causes and (as many have pointed) will not be sufficient.

I did find this talk some time ago: http://www.ted.com/talks/marc_goodman_a_vision_of_crimes_in_the_future.html. It's interesting in noticing that security is almost impossible as damaging is much easier than preventing damage. The problem with terrorist is that little can actually be done to stop it. As it was recently proved, a single person with a gun can shock the world. Do that 10 times in random locations and see what happens... hell, I can think of many ways to create terror myself, without trying much.

I read somewhere that one of Bin Laden's objectives was to make the US spend 1 millon for each dolar that they spent. It is guerrilla warfare, it's all they've got, and they have been extremely successful at it. The values and way of life the US people were so proud about are gone. The millions were spent and continue to be. Sadly, the root of the issue it that, bared some reasonable efforts, the only way to fight terror is by enduring it and not being scared. Luckily, very few people are actually determined to do real damage and cause pain.

But, ironically, bigger than the terrorism risk it's designed to prevent. Apart from the rest of your opinion, which I share, it also feels incredibly stupid to spend trucks of money to actually INCREASE my risk, especially given the economic circumstances and alternatives.

And I'm not even considering that how efficient the scanners are in preventing the terrorism risk in general, which I deem next to zero too. So all things considered, you spend a lot, hazzle and disrespect people considerably, step over privacy rights, don't prevent much and end up adding a new, bigger risk. Fucking brilliant!

What I find even more stupid is the NEED for a consensus. If even a single person tells you you are walking into a sand pit, you should be more careful. If 4 out of 5 people tell you about it, you would be incredibly stupid to continue as if nothing new is going on. Ignoring potential danger until you are 100% certain of it is an evolutionary recipe for extinction. That's why living being react to cues, instincts, etc.

And if there was no real danger, so what? No harm done. God forbid we create a more stable and sustainable society for no reason!

The problem there is that the is no such thing as a Carbon Cliff. It's more of a carbon slope, so there is the illusion of the danger not being too immediate and that eventually you could climb the slope back.

Put a frog in boiling water and he'll jump away. Boil the water when the frog is already in it and it will happily boil to death.

Mirrors, obviously. Everybody know the lasers are on the sharks...

Because god forbid we find something as human as humor in politicians? I mean, I for one would welcome any humane trait in politics whatsoever!

Sorry, I was about to mod you Funny, but hit overrated instead. Commenting to undo.

Plus, the usual legalese I've seen references plenty of other laws and documents, larger and more complicated. These reference other things too. Even worse, some words in a legal context have completely different meanings that the dictionary definition.

The crux of the matter is that every one of us is supposed to know and understand ALL law, and act accordingly. The reality is that no-one does, not completely. We all act on partial knowledge at best, use our own common sense and cross our fingers. Sometimes we can get unlucky and pay for that in time or money or both, heavily. But there is not much you can actually do about it without spending half your life becoming a law expert, which, IMHO, is a very steep overhead that I'm not willing to pay.

Magnetic Hard drives, for instance is an example of the same curve with no transistors.