"Apple, and several others, have managed to blatantly hijack the patent system"

Not defending their current practice (slide to unlock and pinch zoom clearly have prior art), but it comes from their past experience.

One obvious example is the keyboard/trackpad layout of all modern laptops. It was Apple on their PowerBooks who pushed the keyboard toward the screen, making room for palmrests and pointing devices below. Prior to that, everyone was putting keyboards tight against the lower edge. They didn't patent it, and the rest of the industry quickly followed.

MS-BASIC, FTW!

J. Edgar, redux, but with a tinfoil hat.

The article starts out by showing 2 graphs presented as "closely mirroring." They both trend upward, but they're quite different. Religious affiliation even stays flat while Internet usage more than doubles over about a 7 year period.

The linked article mentions correlation/causation, but makes no compelling argument for causation, just a weak rationalization.

And no, I'm not saying correlation implies non-causation, so stop with the straw man.

ITYM "The non-thinker," with regard to this researcher.

The Internet causes a loss of faith in exactly the same way the loss of pirates has caused global warming.

Correlation is not causation.

I take it you've never searched for something on Amazon. Worst search engine EVAR. Results will include completely random items. Sort by price and you'll get results ordered pretty much randomly (maybe the moving average increases somewhat).

I won't disagree with most of what you've said - it's just semantics.

However, even if one considers marriage a "right," nothing in Prop8 denies that right - whether hetero or homo, everyone still had the "right" to marry a person of the opposite sex. If that's some sort of infringement, is this "right" of marriage allowed to discriminate at all? Can a person marry a corporation, which have been found to have rights similar to individuals (Citizens United)? How about a member of another species?

The internationally agreed time standard (TAI or UTC, which are the same, only different) is based on an ensemble of clocks throughout the world. The contribution from NIST (and USNO) is only a part of the realization.

Because of this, actual time can only be known after the fact, because post-processing is needed.

Indirectly, via a GPS refclock.

Kilograms are not weight, they are mass.

Kilograms are units of mass, not weight ( that would be Newtons, which is a force).

Errors are not caused by "miscounting," but due to the fact that no physical realization can be perfect. The second is defined under the conditions of zero acceleration (i.e. no gravity) and at a temperature of absolute zero, neither of which are attainable in practice.

"He wanted to use political force to deny rights to people. So it's more then just an opinion."

You don't know what rights are. Marriage, and the governmental advantages associated with it (such as lower tax rates), is a privilege. Whether hetero or homo, there is no "right" for anyone to get married, or to have the state recognize that marriage.

Furthermore, he was supporting his own opinion, which was not only with the side of the majority, but was related to a right we do have, the right to vote. Would you support firing the over 50% of California voters who supported Prop 8? (That's rhetorical - of course you would, you've shown yourself to be an intolerant bigot)

You're confusing rights with privileges. The government related advantages of marriage are not rights.

Joe McCarthy would be proud.

No comments here as to why BU might want the parties kept private.

Let me hazard to guess that the settlements/licenses included confidentiality clauses, and the publication of the names may somehow work against BU.

OTOH, if BU brought suit against all these companies, wouldn't any post-settlement dismissal of those suits necessarily be a matter of public record?