Actually, it's issued patent vs. pending application. And where the EFF overstepped was in violating 35 USC 122(c):

Had the application been issued, that wouldn't be an issue (pun aside), but as the EFF admits in their comments:

So, yeah, it's a pre-issuance protest to the grant of an application, without express written consent of the applicant.

Ah, but this wasn't a single case with a single victim. This was 27 separate charges with literally thousands of victims. It shouldn't be surprising that someone who commits a crime 27 times serves more time than someone who commits it just once, and that yes, even though it may be only a couple of years of time for a single charge, when you aggregate more than two dozen charges, the time starts approaching that served for a more heinous crime.

For comparison, would you say that it was an example of a court getting whacked out that this guy got 20 years in prison even though he didn't kill anyone, unlike your hypothetical drunk driver (his 11 armed robberies notwithstanding)?

It's not. Rather, the number of separate victims and separate instances of crime is the aggravating factor - he was convicted of 6 counts of extortion and 21 counts of identity theft. Going by your math above, that's 12 years for the extortion and 105 years for the identity theft, or 117 years. He got about 1/6th of that, so, if anything, this is light.

That's true, which is why there aren't any enforceable patents on software, nor are any being issued now. There are patents on machines that implement software, but not on the software itself.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. The "US patent court"? You mean the Appeal Board at the USPTO? And no, it wasn't anything "outside the normal courts" - it was the Supreme Court in Diamond v. Diehr that said that inventions aren't excluded from patentability merely because they use software. And the PTAB wasn't involved in that one at all.

Notice that none of those are actually complaining about the establishment of a unitary court or patent, nor are they saying that this legalizes software patents, which it doesn't. Instead, they say that this could "restart the debate" over software patents. In fact, if you only read the fear-mongering, bolded "software patents are fully enforceable across Europe" in the second quote, you might miss the fact that it's saying that pro-software patent groups want that result, not that it actually exists now.

Mr. Henrion is apparently so strongly opposed to software patents that he's seeing them everywhere he turns. The Unitary Patent is not an "attempt to legalize software patents," it's an attempt to harmonize the current patent system in Europe, which is a silly mishmash of union-wide and nation-specific laws. Specifically, right now, you file a patent application with the European Patent Office, which examines it. If it's allowed, then it doesn't become a patent, as there is no "European patent". Instead, you then also have to file patent applications in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Greece, Italy, Austria, Belgium, etc., etc., paying national patent fees to each country. Those countries will rubber-stamp the patent as allowed based on the European Patent Office's decision to grant, so there's nothing added - it's just a way for each country to grab additional fees.

Of course, as a result of those individual country fees, hardly anyone files for patent protection in, say, Luxembourg, or Albania, or Latvia, because the markets aren't big enough to justify several thousand in fees per country (except in pharma, where they can just charge thousands of dollars per dose of medicine and get the costs back easily). In fact, generally, high tech inventors only get protection in the UK, France, and Germany.

As a result of not having patent protection in those other countries, companies also don't invest in those other countries... You're not going to open a manufacturing plant in, say, Portugal, even if the labor is really cheap, if you have no patent protection there and your competitor can simply open a plant across the street and spy through your windows. Nor are you really going to focus marketing efforts in those countries, if your competitor can simply buy the product and reverse engineer it. So, you end up with 1st world Europe in UK/FR/DE, and 2nd (or 3rd) world Europe everywhere else.

The Unitary Patent, on the other hand, is an actual European Patent. Rather than nationalizing in each individual country, you get a single European Patent that is enforceable everywhere in Europe. It doesn't make software patents legal - and in fact, software patenting is explicitly not allowed in Europe already, and this doesn't change anything about it - it just makes the filing and fees more straightforward, while extending protection into those other countries.

The other thing it does - and Slashdot should like this - is that it creates a Unified Patent Court that hears cases on infringement and validity of European patents. And it's not just one old fart in a black robe who doesn't use email and 12 idiots who had the day off from work, it's actually panels of three specialist judges who only hear patent cases and have appropriate scientific or engineering backgrounds (there's a mechanical division, a chemical division, and an electrical division).

Now, there is some opposition to the Unitary Patent, but it's not "zomg, this legalizes software!" Instead, it's coming from companies in those countries that no one bothers getting a patent in that actually are doing reverse engineering of competitor's products. And yeah, they should be upset, because this would force them to come up with their own inventions rather than just stealing everyone else's.

Disclaimer: I am a U.S. patent attorney, I'm not your attorney, this is not legal advice, etc.

Literally every president - and candidate - since Reagan has been called "polarizing". Look at Romney with his whole "47% of the country will never vote for me, so we need to focus on the remaining 53% to win" thing. Why is it an issue now?

Yeah, that's never been abused before...

Maybe it's an issue with HR at your company, not passing resumes of women to you.

Sure, but your earlier comment was that you haven't even seen a woman candidate in years. Unless you've also never seen any male candidates and have maintained the same team through that period, than that random sampling should be much more than 10. And depending on how many resumes you've received and interviews conducted, seeing no women candidates could start looking very strange statistically.

So, industry-wide, sure, it's a thing for sociologists and educators. But your team personally? Maybe there's something you've missed in your position advertising that convinces women never to apply.

Have you tried to figure out why that is, or is it not a focus?

I think you'd be fine. As people mentioned, the roads can be a bit difficult, but take your time (put the game on pause when doing a bunch of road building) and have fun.

As others have noted, this is realistic. There's also a real-world solution for it - exits should occur before merges. That way, there's an empty lane for cars to merge into. By having a merge before the exit, as highway throughput increases, you experience jams.

Yep. Great system, though a little awkward when tipping and they're standing over you staring as you go to push the 10- no, 15- no, [gulp] 20% button. Maybe that's why they don't tip much in Europe.

That said, there's a reason why the US is moving to Chip & Signature cards, but not Chip & PIN. The banks will tell you it's because they don't want to confuse or scare their customers who can't learn new systems, but the real answer is that legally, if there's fraud on regular credit cards or chip & signature, the banks can charge it back to the merchant, who must have failed to verify the signature or ID of the purchaser. If there's fraud on chip & PIN cards, legally, the banks have to eat it. So they're not moving to that until they have to.