The internet ones all created facilities that could have conceivably been used to build a "Silk Road". And by "conceivably", I mean "conceivably at the time", as in "Silk Road is not sufficiently non-obvious that it should be granted a patent".

The two pharmaceutical companies were involved in the development of drugs which were capable of being abused (one of which was heroin), and it's not like drug abuse was unknown at the time.

If not "before the fact", then at least accessories.

In the same way that gun manufacturers have been hauled into court for facilitating murders.

Too bad he didn't live in Europe; sending a "Right to be forgotten" email to Google is a heck of a lot cheaper.

Well, technically, on that note, DARPA, LLBL, the IETF, his ISP, A.G. Farbin, Bayer, Sandoz, Vint Cerf, and Tim Berners Lee are all accessories before the fact...

This makes me wonder. Does anyone know how much the State of California collected in sales tax on pharmacy sales last year?

If only you could LEASE a LINE... (hint hint)

To the people who think this is not serious... these tests are also used to determine who does or does not get scholarships.

A full ride scholarship means you do not pay for tuition, books, or even living expenses, if you live in a dorm. Lesser scholarships may only cover tuition + books, or tuition.

Still, given all the bitching about student loan debt: consider that these people, *minimally* get out with one year less of loan debt.

If they can additionally either keep their grades up themselves, or have someone do it for them, they can keep renewing the scholarship, and graduate with zero loan debt, compared to the rest of the schlubs who are coming out with a quarter million or more in student loan debt.

Further, fraudulently obtaining a scholarship this way means one less scholarship for a truly academically gifted person, who ends up paying the freight themselves, and if they do not come from a silver spoon background, it means they graduate with debt they would otherwise not have had. Even if they are a silver spoon case, they've lost the time value of money spent out of pocket, which translated to a smaller inheritance/trust fund/whatever.

This is, in fact a big deal. We are talking really large amounts of money here.

As a final consideration, this: the people taking these tests over and over for different people each time: they've had a *hell of a lot* of practice at this point. They are likely very, very good at it.

No, we'd be in 1400 again, if they started using those tactics (think Lorenzo de Medici).

It'd be time to hire food tasters, and hop it wasn't something slow-acting.

Sorry. No, I won't. I don't watch "infotainment", and that includes both "news" programs from Fox and MSNBC, which both just try to confirm the existing biases of the people who are already in their target demographic. Well, that, and they manufacture "sound bites".

Unless you want to bring back real news programs, I'm entirely uninterested in current television "news".

Guess that explains how I missed that little "gem".

Because it's cheaper to have an immortal serf class than it is to have to train up larval serfs for 20 years at a net negative value before they're useful?

Young people are generally a resource sink with no return on investment for a couple decades.

Who cares?

Build more nuclear plants, and use the power to operate the desalination plants you also build.

BONUS! By removing sea water from the oceans for the purpose of desalination, you mitigate the ocean level rise due to global warming!

DOUBLE BONUS! By building nuclear plants, you mitigate the production of greenhouse gasses, reducing global warming!

TRIPLE BONUS! By having an excess of water, you can grow more cattle and crops and increase the planets carrying capacity!

QUADRUPLE BONUS! Excess fresh water allows you to address ongoing desertification!

Ching ching ching ching ching ... -- human net prosperity slot machine paying out

Which is why you build space structures to control the amount of sunlight actually reaching the surface of the Earth. And coat those space structures with solar cells so that they generate power at the same time.

No, in other words, lots of people have more government corruption than they need.

Lots of food aid gets delivered to famine nations in Africa, and it either rots on the docks (what the corrupt government doesn't use itself or give to its soldiers), or the surplus that would otherwise go to people who are not corrupt government or soldiers gets sold off to other nations in order to raise money to buy weapons for the soldiers.

In other words, exactly as the GP said: a distribution problem, but one unrelated to the mechanics of distribution, rather the politics of distribution.

Yeah I never heard it called "Obamaphone" before this article.

It sounds like someone trying to associate themselves with something positive as part of their "legacy"...

At least it's no longer flying in restricted airspace... :)

Meddia is not the same thing as software, so your examples really don't apply in this case. Better examples are:

ASHTON-TATE CORP. v. FOX SOFTWARE, INC. -- NO. CV 88-6837 TJH (TX).

Lotus Development Corp. v. Paperback Software International. U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts. June 28, 1990. 740 F.Supp. 37, 15 USPQ2d 1577

The interpretation that the federal government is holding forth here is that both of these cases were adjudicated incorrectly.

If the Supreme Court fails to hear the current case, both of those previous cases are defacto overturned.

You can effectively say "goodbye" to the software industry, if companies are allowed to enforce interface copyrights. At least in the U.S.. Obviously, other countries will just ignore the U.S.'s idiocy, and continue on their merry way, and quickly surpass the U.S. in software development, just as they have in other economic areas.