I'm curious. Are you in the States right now? I would like to know why and how Switzerland has its personal accountability complex, which is awesome, and Americans have the no accountability complex? I figured it might be something related to mandatory service, common experiences, same-team kind of stuff so the disillusionment could at least be standardized. =)

Cheers

You really have no idea what you're talking about. I hate starting comments like that, because it makes people defensive, but alas I have other things I need to do today. If there were one thing I could change about America, it would be a mandatory service much like that employed in Switzerland.

Sure, you are a better programmer than soldier. So what? Half of the USAF does nothing but sit behind computer screens all day. Violence is the least of what we can do to serve our country and represent the nation's best interests.

The point that I'd like to make is really this: we are a divide states of America. We do not know how lucky and resourceful we really are. I've seen people who sell drugs on the streets because that's all they know. By and large, their negative attitude toward America and the opportunity available is shared by most citizens. We talk about "them" and "their" government holding "us" down in some way or another. The fallacy is that we /are/ the government. We are the United States of America. When our politicians fail us, we are supposed to get pissed and stay pissed until we get what we want: their heads on a spike.

I invite you not to respond to this post with yet another post but instead, a trip to Zurich, Switzerland. Contact some of the folks on http://www.couchsurfing.org/ so that you may be hosted by a proper Suisse, and learn. They are older and wiser as a culture with a penchant for excellence and perfection. They are the best program management/system integrators in our little planet. Truly, some of what makes them who they are is the mandatory service and the fact that every Suisse household has a standard issue military weapon and, at the end of every year, freshly shipped ammunition from the government for it. Interesting, indeed.

Cheers

This assumes, as you stated, that every life is important, but additionally that each life is valued equally. Herein lies the basis for those who studying foreign policy. When resources become scarce, when issues cross borders, when violence becomes polarized in over-populated areas... when do you start to value some lives more than others and how do you do it. It sucks, but if we can't take care of ourselves reasonably well first, there is little use in offering help to anyone.

Yeah, cause those poor beautiful people in Sweden are... so... poor... because they lack the infinite bliss that is what, Baconnaise(TM)?

Actually, I'm pretty sure Benjamin was talking about "public provisions made for the poor" and not merely public provisions made for the commonwealth.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=225113&title=the-stockholm-syndrome
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=225126&title=the-stockholm-syndrome-pt.-2

Don't worry about it. They will get meta-moderated and in the future not get as many mod points. Eventually.

In the mean time, feel free to expound upon the most difficult aspect of the copyright dialogue: how to compensate original authors.

Certainly the moral aspect of taking someone's work for free, representing it as your own, and then profiting tremendously from it is plain as day wrong.

However, let's complicate it a bit. Take each of these as a "What if?" scenario:
The original author is dead.
The "rights" were transferred to an organization that will never die, like his family or corp.
The original work is obscure.
Other work is independently achieved.
The work is too expensive for someone to "buy".
The work is used, but not for profit.
The work is used, new work is made and the original cited.

The list goes on, though it should show some of the key inherent problems with material value and ownership. Attributing material value to an idea seems fraught with philosophical peril.

What is ownership, anyway? Just some government given attribute that allows us to take from others.

Being your usual polite Midwestern guy, I would prefer to solve to problem by getting people to willingly remove money from their wallets for my work, as opposed to some government enforced law decreeing so. The solution to copy-cats is fairly easy: keep creating. They may have taken your fish today, but you still know how to fish and they don't.

How we ought to legislate copy-rights and other such weird concepts such as intellectual property, I have no idea. So long as the government doesn't spend much money on it and it's so unenforceably broken (like now), it's fine.

In the current system, the low hanging fruit seems to be 1) spending less tax money on the problem overall, 2) decreasing the copyright lifetime, 3) protect individuals, not corporations, 3) simple policy, 4) provide swift and immediate judgments.

This is frankly not true in the United States. Jury Nullification, though obscure, is a very balancing and necessary part of trial by a jury of peers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification

"The on-chip antenna feeds the LTCC patch antenna through aperture coupling, thus negating the need for RF buffer amplifiers, matching elements, baluns, bond wires and package transmission lines."

From the systems perspective he made a better RF transmitter block. Digging into that block and looking at the RF design level, he simplified the circuitry normally used such as a matching network for the antenna, transmission lines, oscillator (for modulating the information over the carrier frequency), etc into a discrete chip as opposed to multiple printed circuit board components to do that same job.

Beyond that I'd need to study the paper and find more detailed examples of cell phone architecture to have a better idea of the advantages and disadvantages over the legacy design.

I'm sorry, what? Rail obsolete? Are you kidding me? Our government is downright sucking the rail industry dry with property taxes for the rails and, unlike the air industry, doesn't practically pay for your ticket and it's /still profitable/.

Also, there's the fact that it takes at least 3 to 4 hours to get anywhere by air, including places that it takes 2 hours to drive. That would be 2 hours for regular rail and 1 hour for high speed. Cleveland to Columbus, Toledo to Cincinnati, etc? The fact of the matter is that medium to small length distances are immediately better suited to rail. Sorry. The TSA and the complexity of flight guarantee that.

The government should serve the best interests of the common wealth. If that means bringing out horses and buggies, then so be it. However, until oil disappears from the energy equation, I think the numbers will show otherwise.