Unfortunately, their incentives are diametrically opposed to common sense. There is literally no downside for a USPTO examiner to rubber-stamp everything on his or her desk. They get to go home early to beat the traffic, while productive society is left to deal with the legal fallout. The net effect is to devalue legitimate IP while rewarding the trolls.
Alternatively, so many patents are filed that in order to work through them an examiner must spend the minimum time possible as well s avoid re-examination if he or she refuses it so the rational thing to do is approve all unless it is obviously not patentable. The legal system can then sort out what is valid and what is not.
A solution would be to hire more examiners or make a patent case loser pay if the holder loses the suit but that would involve Congress actually looking at realistic solutions.
The first question that comes to my mind is, "What the fuck is the point of 2 Gbps service for residential customers?" It's marketing department dick waving that serves no purpose. It would seem to me that society (both public and corporate) ought to be looking at the areas that are lucky to get T-1 speeds before it worries about upgrading cities that already have access to double and triple digit Mbps connections. For most people it's all gravy once you get past 10-15Mbps and I'm not aware of any consumer grade gear that can take advantage of 2Gbps.
More importantly, what are the caps on such service? You'll essentially wind up paying more for band width you really don't need and not getting any noticeable performance boost, at least for the average home user. The best result from Google's rollout is that incumbents may be forced to offer more competitive offerings, especially if Google offers $300/lifetime rates.
(Though on reflection, we're probably saying much the same thing, just from different points of view.)
It's industrial capacity that was the real "secret weapon" that the Allies had in WWII - in both theatres.
True. You made a lot of good points. That's the problem with
The Japanese strategy of using their subs as highly ineffective aircraft carriers is one of the reasons they lost the war. While they were wasting their efforts on that, the American's were using their subs as commerce raiders, devastating the Japanese economy
True, but one tactic that the Germans didn't realize was we were reading their codes and thus able to better intercept U-Boots and wolf packs. I'm not sure if Japan had developed sonar to the point it could detect submerged submarines; although radar could detect them while surfaced, which was their normal mode of operation, but then that also warns the submarine you are there before you detect them. Finally, the Allies pretty much controlled the seas in the Atlantic and thus could conduct ASW without much concern that they would get into surface battles; Japan did not have that luxury and was trying to fight naval battles that took ships that could be used for ASW away from that role. Not disagreeing with you but the two theaters were different enough that many of the things that work din one might not in the other.
Agreed. We look at the Pinto specifically as a case study in my engineering ethics class back in college, there was not excuse for what they did. All engineers do have to make trade-off decisions, but the fucking deluxe fix was $11, that is it.They could have built that into the car price with virtually no impact. TFA picked one terrible example...
I'm curious how the case was presented. We did not have an this case when I studied engineering, our professors made a point of ensuring we understood that all our decisions had ramifications and as engineers we had a duty to ensure we made decisions in the best interests of the public. that didn't mean we had to over engineer everything but that we made sure what we did was the right solution and not just the easiest solution.
My experience, much later in business school when we did have to take an ethics class was that all too often the case was designed to come to an obvious answer and ignored much of the factors that went into a decision; as a result my classmates tut-tuted decision made by the obvious evil decision maker and felt smug in the knowledge they would never do that. Being an engineer, who also spent a lot of time investigating incident at plants, I wanted to understand why the deacons was made and what the conditions were when it was made. Of course, when I presented a contrary opinion my classmates no doubt though I was some kind of psychopath. My experience has been it's a lot easier to say "I would not have done that" than to actually not do it when the situation arises. of course, I could probably have phrased some of my comments better by not starting out with "just because people die doesn't mean it was the wrong decision..."
Also, sticking in the outside lane at 5 miles an hour under [the speed limit], you'll always have a gap in front of you.
In Georgia, that will get you a ticket for impeding traffic, not to mention a symphony of air horns and possibly a collection of bullet holes.
Get real. if you're doing 50 in Georgia you're still in a parking lot or pulling out of your driveway.
It's not a horrible contract if both parties agreed to it
It's a horrible contract if it purports to require that consumers pay ESPN even if they don't want it. In fact, that's arguably illegal.
It's not good for the customer, but no one is forced to sign up for cable
Seriously? That's the best you have? It's OK for asshole cable companies to force you to buy something you don't want, and if you don't like that you're free to not have cable at all?
Complete and utter fucking nonsense.
Sorry, but ESPN has no legal standing to force the consumers of Verizon to essentially have a package which kicks back to ESPN.
That should get you a RICO conviction. Because if someone says "oh, sorry, but we have a contract with my cousin Vinnie, and you have to pay him every time you buy something from us".
Yeah, sorry. fuck that.
I'm not sure what legal argument and case law you are using for your argument; but there is nothing illegal about a company offering a bundle of services on a take it or leave it basis. You might not like it, but they can offer their product in any way they chose; no one is forcing you to get a cable subscription. RICO? Seriously? Your argument is like saying McD's and their hamburger supplier are violating RICO laws since the burger maker gets a kickback overtime McD's sells a burger and you can't buy just the bun without paying for the burger as well. To make it a
As for your "it's not good for the consumer" argument I'd counter argue that it is good because the bundle price is probably less than what it would cost to get a separate set of channels a la cart; since ether bundle spreads the cost around a lot of consumers. In auditor, it makes channels you may be interested in but have very low actual viewership sustainable since they get money form all subscribers, not just the 2 that actually watch them.
Exactly. People seem to forget that labor is also a market. If people are unwilling to perform the job at a given pay rate, then the rate is then too low and must be adjusted. For some reason we have allowed the creation of a permanent immigrant underclass in the US and convinced ourselves that no one else here is willing to do the job. Horseshit. No one is willing to do it at the artificially low wage that agribusiness wishes to pay. Supply and demand has been legislated out of the equation and has flipped the labor market upside down.
Exactly. Employees leave out the "at the wage I want to pay" at the end of their "I can't get people to take this job..." whine. It's no surprise as people get better educated they don't want to do back breaking labor at low wages.
What you describe is not a duress password, it is a safety-destruct and the critical difference is that it is used before the bad guys have you in their power. Still a risk to your health, but less so as you did not disobey a direct order.
well, if someone is holding a gun to your head and telling you to gain access to a location I'd say they have you in their power and the password you give is under duress; since you would not use it in any other situation.
The idea is that if you beat somebody with a rubber hose, that does not leave any mark.
Also, stop the nonsense about duress-passwords. They do not work. Really not and no, your smart idea for any movie-like device that makes them work is just that: Movie-like but not real. On the other hand, trying to be smart with a duress password procedure can easily get you killed or worse.
That really depends on the circumstances. For someone with a PDA (remember them) or computer they are unlikely to be useful, especially if the person "persuading" you is convinced the device contains the information they want. OTOH, they can be useful in specific circumstances. We had a duress codeword to indicate forceable entry was being attempted. When the door was opened the bad guys would be treated by a bunch of pissed off guys with automatic weapons.
Damn, lots of Stasi victims are still of working age even. You'd hope the Germans had developed more antibodies against this crap.
I'm guessing is more of a genetic predisposition towards rather than something they caught post - WWII.
"The four building blocks of the universe are fire, water, gravel and vinyl." -- Dave Barry
