Wouldn't that also imply that for the first 5 billion years planets in general would be low in metal? So you would have very few planets without iron cores and similer density as Earth. There would be a different chemical mix in most of the universe.

Now they just need to remove the words Buy, Store, and Sale.

It is going to be like virtual fence for your dog. Everyone gets shock collars. Anyone who crosses the line is shocked. Also no barking.

The article misunderstands the halting problem. You could replace robots with humans and murder with any descision involing other people and come to the same conclusion. AI does not try to create perfect solutions. Instead you try to create solutions that work most of the time. Approaches that can evolve with trail and error. Ethically you weigh the positive benifits of success against the negative consequences of your failures.

And the coal mine? Coal doesn't just grow on trees. It has to be dug up.

Patents last 20 years. All of todays seeds will eventually be public domain. Problem will solve itself by doing nothing.

ICANN was not involved in those cases. ICANN delegates the buying and selling of second level domains to domain name registars. This is where the contract comes in. ICANN controls the top level domain and points these at the domain name registars. In this case North Korea.

The courts can award Faye $1million even if Edward has $5 in his wallet. They can force Edward to hand over the cash once the contract completes. Faye becomes a lienholder agaists Edward.

Basically it works like this.
1) Amy has a contract to wash Bob's car for $100 month.
2) Carl sues Bob for murdering his dog.
3) The courts can not give Carl a contract with Amy. The courts can only award Carl with property and money taken from Bob.
Basically the courts can't force Amy to work with Carl. They can't force ICANN to work with the plantiffs.

Sure utility patent for the functional part and design patents for the ornamental part. The structure, sequence, and organization of the API is ornamental. The implementation of an API method is functional. You can get copyright on the implementation of the API because the implementation is an expression of the API. The API being a method of operation for the software it is excluded from copyright. (in order to allow multiple expressions of the API)

http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/bak...

This is where the method of operation language comes from in the EFF document. They are arguing that that API is a method of using the system.(java) They are arguing that you can't protect java by copyrighting the API. That it should be protected with patents instead.

No, I'm talking about Baker vrs Seldon. Selden had written a book "Book-keeping Simplified." that described his book-keeping form. His estate sued Baker who used a very similar form in his book.

This came about in a court case where someone tried to copyright a book keeping form they invented. They were attempting to get copyright on the form because they failed to get a patent on it. The inventor carefully thought out how the book keeping form should look like. It was not a mere arrangement of facts or information. The courts rejected this argument. They did not want useful inventions covered by copyright when congress intended for them to be covered by patents. In 1975 congress updated the law to match what the Supreme court ruled.

Design patents are the correct form of IP protection for what you described. An API is an invention with utility. It is just like a font. Or a guitar body. Or a lamp shaped like a lady's leg. 14 years is not a long time for protection either.

Not all written works are covered by copyright. For example, most of the content in dictionaries and phone books are not covered by copyright. EFF is arguing that an API is more like a phone book than it is like Harry Potter.