This argument:

"The whole "software is math" argument is old and debunked. Anything which requires creativity and careful analysis, and the investment therein, is a potentially valuable addition to human knowledge. In exchange for investing in such a thing, there should be the potential to protect your investment from copycats without resorting to keeping it a secret."

seems to support using Copyrights instead of Patents. Knowledge shouldn't be patented, right? Perhaps copyrighted (if published), but not patented.

I'm not sure that "software is math" is really debunked anyways, but honestly, I never found that argument that compelling in the first place. I've always like "software is speech" - it is a literal series of 1's and 0's representing language, right? Just because both humans and machines can interpret that language doesn't make it any less a language. And NO language is patentable - expressions created within that language are COPYRIGHTABLE, but ought not be patented. It seems to me that we can still encourage creativity and innovation without allowing people who truly don't grok what software even is (voodoo magix?!?!?) to completely mis-classify what software actually is.

I know not everyone will agree with me, but for those of us that actually spend all day / night writing in programming languages, how do you view this interpretation?

This is good advice, and gives me an opportunity to speak to the community at large: some of us who go to cons and are in a position to shake tons of hands politely decline. It's not because we're being dicks, it's because we know it's a good way to substantially decrease our chances of catching and spreading any germs.

I played the PAX Pandemic game, where the Enforcers handed out stickers to attendees that read [Carrier] [Infected] or [Immune] (There was also a [Patient Zero].

I got the [Immune] sticker, and by the time I got home on Monday, it was clear that I had the flu. I've had a fever between 100 and 104 all week that finally broke last night, but I'm going to the doctor today because I think whatever I had settled into my lungs. I'll tell him about the H1N1 outbreak and get tested if he wants to run the test, but at this point I think it's safe to assume that I was [Immune] to the Pig Plague, but definitely [Infected] with the damn PAX pox.

Even though it's been a week of misery, it was entirely worth it, and I don't regret going to PAX for a single second.

I know I may get blasted by the MS haters that lurk here, but I have to say the MS / Razer Habu I picked up at the local Fry's on sale (1/2 price!) has served me well. It's "technically" a gaming mouse (or that's how they market it, anyway), but I've found it works really well at high resolutions on my dual displays in both Windows XP & Ubuntu. I had to do a little bit of configuration in Ubuntu to map all of my keys, but it has 6 programmable keys, great resolution (1600 DPI) and the programmable keys are in positions (IMHO) that really are useful to me whether I'm fraggin zombies in Left 4 Dead or banging out code in Eclipse / VS.

The one thing that DID bum me out was that the firmware update utility only runs on Windows (or at least it did when I bought it a year or so ago), but I mean, this is a MS product, so I kind of figured that. Once I updated the FW, though, Ubuntu detected it fine, so I'm not complaining too loudly.

It's a wired mouse (I'd hate to think how heavy it would be with enough batteries to get that high of a laser DPI), but it does have a really nice long cord and is pretty ergonomic. YMMV, but that's my 2 cents.