But is *everything* they learned on the job is a secret?

1. When you've worked at a very high level the NSA;
2. When you are selling security information/services; and
3. When your asking price is far higher than competitive services by people who've worked at it far longer than you outside of the NSA,

What do you imagine lies in between publicly known and classified that justifies the price premium? Was he developing security procedures on his own time or at his second job?

Water soluble catalyst.

Oops. Understatement. Water EXPLOSIVE catalyst.

My bad. Point stands. Anhydrous ammonia for everyone.

Many catalysts can effectively crack ammonia to release the hydrogen, but the best ones are very expensive precious metals. This new method is different and involves two simultaneous chemical processes rather than using a catalyst, and can achieve the same result at a fraction of the cost. ...

Professor Bill David, who led the STFC research team at the ISIS Neutron Source, said "Our approach is as effective as the best current catalysts but the active material, sodium amide, costs pennies to produce.

Water soluble catalyst. Which means anhydrous ammonia. Which means that your local fuel station is going to be dispensing anhydrous ammoinia in bulk to everyone with such a vehicle.

What else is anhydrous ammonia used for? I don't know... Nothing detrimental, anyway...

To a 3rd party observer there is no difference. Person A gives money to Person B who moves their car so A can take their spot. How are you going to prove B would have moved earlier if not for A? Reading their mind?

You're assuming a secret offer from B to A and secret acceptance from A to B. But B has published their offer on the app -- which can be shown to the third party observer -- and no mind reading is involved.

The legal basis for regulating this out of existence is, quite simply, keeping the peace.

Person C can deny person A the right to take the spot from person B. Easily. Person C can use the app to locate the parking spot, drive to it, and then refuse to move away in order to let person A assume the spot. To avoid blocking traffic, person C could even drop a passenger off at the spot to occupy it the moment that person B actually leaves, thus securing the spot for person C. Anyone can be person C simply by using the app and refusing to pay.

Oh the battles that would generate... so we don't let it. Publishing the offer to move is against the law. End of story.

People are voting with their dollars and their feet EVERYDAY. What is your "democratically elected" government worth in the face of that? How representative...

People vote with their dollars and their feet for dumping in unlicensed landfills and on abandoned property EVERYDAY. That doesn't make it a remotely good idea.

Your problem is only that you don't know how to change the default search engine. I sympathize, but it's still not the devil.

Says you. In fact I do. You'd do well to notice the part in my post about every other thing that you install trying to change it to another one...

This is because, as a developer, you're a user who understands and knows what you want. Microsoft is writing software for the kind of people who'd type google into the google search bar to get to google.

I've done that, intentionally. Do you know why? Because between Microsoft deciding that anything that isn't at least a second level domain is a search request intended for bing and Time Warner deciding that anything that isn't immediately properly resolveable should be DNS redirected to their own god-awful search-like landing page, that can be the most reliable way to get to where I actually want to go.

I usually have set my DNS to OpenDNS, but if I've rebuilt the machine or traveled and stayed somewhere that mysteriously breaks my manually-specified DNS server, I may have reverted the notebook to use whatever is automatically set by DHCP.

I usually uncheck software's constant attempts to make [insert name here] my new default search agent, or to activate some added search suggestion do-hickey, but I'm not perfectly vigilant.

Nevermind that this browser will automatically assume "www." and that browser will automatically assume ".com" and maybe, but not consisntently, if you type "google" you'll actually get to the Google front page.

The kind of people who type google into the google search bar to get google are the kind of people who are not so technologically savvy that they can consistently prevent the ever-loving war to redirect any user typing something into what should be a URL entry field to some random "search engine" because user traffic = middleman $$$.

THE UNIFIED SEARCH AND ADDRESS BAR IS TEH DEVIL.

The Bing toolbar, Google toolbar, or what have you can be ugly clutter, but it can't be subtly screwed with by the other devils.

And that is why you get people typing google into the google search bar to get to google.

Saying that the word " infinity cove" doesn't include a description of lighting doesn't add much value, and frankly I am not going to waste my time researching which of 16,000 search results they meant when they can't even provide their own link.

The burden of persuasion lies with the person citing (if you can even call it that) the prior art...

There should be an easy and open mechanism for objections. The process as it stands is broken and very obscure.

Translation: It should take no knowlege, cost nothing, and preferably involve some charitable group that carries out my wants, unbidden, before I've even appreciated that I have them. Just like in everything else in life.

Rebuttal:

Citation of prior art and written statements

"Any person at any time may cite to the Office in writing... prior art consisting of patents or printed publications which that person believes to have a bearing on the patentability of any claim of a particular patent... [and] If the person citing prior art or written statements... explains in writing the pertinence and manner of applying the prior art or written statements to at least 1 claim of the patent, the citation of the prior art or written statements and the explanation thereof shall become a part of the official file of the patent."

That seems easy, open, to cost nothing (but time and a stamp), and not particularly obscure. But then, if you can't be bothered to Google how to submit prior art and then read one of the top 5 links, everything is obscure.

Prior art: infinity cove. Patent dismissed. End of story. Thanks for playing.

No decription of lighting.

Does not anticipate.

All limitations must be shown to be obvious.

Dismissal reversed upon appeal to the PTAB. Back to the examiner.

Don't tell me the rules of a game I play for a living, son. I know them better than you ever will.

There needs to be some sort of appeal or review process whereby the public can object to patents like this and many others that have been granted.

It's as if Title 35, Part III, Chapters 30, 31, and 32 never even existed...

Took me 10 seconds to find this page:

It took me about 30 seconds to glance at this:

1. A studio arrangement, comprising: a background comprising a white cyclorama; a front light source positioned in a longitudinal axis intersecting the background, the longitudinal axis further being substantially perpendicular to a surface of the white cyclorama; an image capture position located between the background and the front light source in the longitudinal axis, the image capture position comprising at least one image capture device equipped with an eighty-five millimeter lens, the at least one image capture device further configured with an ISO setting of about three hundred twenty and an f-stop value of about 5.6; an elevated platform positioned between the image capture position and the background in the longitudinal axis, the front light source being directed toward a subject on the elevated platform; a first rear light source aimed at the background and positioned between the elevated platform and the background in the longitudinal axis, the first rear light source positioned below a top surface of the elevated platform and oriented at an upward angle relative to a floor level; a second rear light source aimed at the background and positioned between the elevated platform and the background in the longitudinal axis, the second rear light source positioned above the top surface of the elevated platform and oriented at a downward angle relative to the floor level; a third rear light source aimed at the background and positioned in a lateral axis intersecting the elevated platform and being substantially perpendicular to the longitudinal axis, the third rear light source further positioned adjacent to a side of the elevated platform; and a fourth rear light source aimed at the background and positioned in the lateral axis adjacent to an opposing side of the elevated platform relative to the third rear light source; wherein a top surface of the elevated platform reflects light emanating from the background such that the elevated platform appears white and a rear edge of the elevated platform is substantially imperceptible to the image capture device; and the first rear light source, the second rear light source, the third rear light source, and the fourth rear light source comprise a combined intensity greater than the front light source according to about a 10:3 ratio.

Then to look at your linked page and see that this Mr. Dobbins used at most 4 work lights, set alongside the camera tripod, which bounced light off the ceiling and onto the backdrop.

Now you tell me... is the camera between the lights and the screen along the same longitudinal axis? Where are the rear light sources? Any of them?

What, exactly, are they trying to "patent" and why does this examiner still have a job? It's obvious that we need to have crowdsourcing prior art as an official part of the patent process.

Question, meet answer (above). Another thing that's obvious is that you have not read the claims or found anything that's more than background-relevant to whether the idea is patentable or not.

That's idiotic. Free people aren't free to torture and kill anyone they like, no matter how much they want to. Freedom has natural boundaries, and doesn't include murder for a start.

That's idiotic. Free people aren't free to criticize anyone they like, no matter how much they want to. Freedom has natural boundaries, and doesn't include interfering with their "elected president" for a start.

"Natural boundaries...." an almost infinitely malleable concept useful for turning "freedom" into an arbitrary means of exercising pervasive control.

To understand the concept, you should think of "free" as in "free speech," not as in "free beer".

We campaign for these freedoms because everyone deserves them. With these freedoms, the users (both individually and collectively) control the program and what it does for them. When users don't control the program, we call it a âoenonfreeâ or âoeproprietaryâ program. The nonfree program controls the users, and the developer controls the program; this makes the program an instrument of unjust power.

A program is free software if the program's users have the four essential freedoms:
* The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
*The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
* The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
* The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

GNU's Free Software Definition

Your failure to research the philosophy of the license you wish to see changed does not constitute an argument. It is rather an admission that you're a willing member of the rabble... as if posting AC wasn't enough of one.

free to use unless you intend to kill people.

So you're willing to throw out "free as in speech" the moment that the person using the software uses it in a way that you don't like, or just isn't somebody that you like.

Good luck with that. Everyone has activities that they don't like and people that they don't like. Those dislikes might even, *gasp*, be directed at you.

Double good luck with that given that Linux is about as likely to change its license as you are to recognize the hypocrisy of a "public license" that is limited to your ideological friends.