We do know the problem. Personal electronics devices can radiate unintended signals that interfere with navigation and communications system signals.

Here's the part you keep ignoring: they interfere with the SIGNALS. It's not a lack of shielding in the aircraft gear. You can't run a shielded cable from the airport to the approaching plane. The fundamental issue is personal devices which emit at frequencies used by aircraft.

We could tighten the limits on allowed emissions by devices. The current regulations balance the amount and type of interference with the cost of reducing emissions. All of the cheap and easy ways to reduce emissions are already used. Tighter limits means higher prices for consumer electronics.

We could replace our ILS systems with new technology that's harder to jam. That would cost a bundle, and your tax dollars would pay for it.

Or we could turn off personal devices during takeoff and landing. That's by far the cheapest solution.

Yes, they do emit signals. Not on purpose, but it's a side effect of how most receivers work.

Superheterodyne receivers have a local oscillator which is mixed with signal from the antenna to shift the signal down to the intermediate frequency. Nearly all receivers work this way.

There might be leakage from the local oscillator. The the stage that mixes the LO with the incoming signal doesn't just mix with the desired signal, it mixes with every signal that reaches it, shifting them all to new frequencies. So a circuit designed to receive one frequency may be transmitting, weakly, on other frequencies.

In addition, personal electronics rarely consist of only a receiver. Digital circuits generate a lot of radio noise. Yes, they are supposed to be shielded to keep that noise inside the device, but some gets out.

We could solve this by replacing the instrument landing systems with newer technology that's more resistant to interference. That would cost a lot, and your taxes would pay for it. We could tighten the standards for emissions from personal electronics, if you don't mind doubling or tripling the price. Or we could turn off devices during takeoff and landing, which is both cheap and effective.

Yeah, all trolls are non-practicing entities. That's makes them trolls rather than some other form of patent abuser.

Unisys isn't a troll. They published a paper about LZW without noting that they had applied for a patent. You might consider that abuse of the patent system; I certainly do. But it's a different type of abuse than the type called trolling.

Calling all abusers of patents trolls is the same as calling everyone who has sex outside of marriage a prostitute. Yes, prostitutes have sex outside of marriage. So do people who aren't prostitutes. A prostitute is someone who has sex with nearly anyone in exchange for money. It isn't the sex that defines a prostitute, it is that the key factor in choosing an acceptable partner is money. That's what distinguishes a prostitute from a groupie; the key factor in choosing a partner for a groupie is fame. Two different words for two different groups, groups with some similarities, but the differences are important enough to use different words.

Yes, some Bible-thumping preacher may call any woman who has sex outside of marriage a whore, but that's a rhetorical tactic to shut down rational discussion. Is that what you want? To shut down rational discussion about patents? You can make a good case that Unisys abused its patent on LZW. You can make a good case that Microsoft abuses its patents. You can make a good case that Apple abuses it patents. But when you label them trolls, you devalue your own argument, for they they don't meet the definition of patent trolls. Sure, troll is a nicely emotional description, but isn't your argument stronger when it's accurate?

Apple may be abusing the patent system, but not all abuse is trolling. Patent troll has a specific meaning.

Companies who sell products which use patents have incentives to cross-license with other similar companies. If you need my patent and I need your patent, we can come to agreement about reasonable terms. If I don't need your patent because I found a way around it, then you have incentive to drop your demands down to the cost of my work-around. But if I don't need your patent because I don't sell any products at all, then I can demand unreasonable royalties. The royalties don't make me a troll, it's not selling products that makes me a troll. Patent trolling is all about asymmetrical relationships between patent holders; those who need patents because they make things, and those who don't need patents because they don't make things.

There are many ways to abuse patents. Trolling describes only one. Apple is a patent abuser, not a patent troll.

Apple does what it does very, very well, but innovation is not the correct word for it.

Innovation is doing something for the first time. Granted, Apple does have patents, as do most successful technology companies. But those patents, those actual innovations, are not what the public associates with Apple.

Apple is known for being the first to do something well. Not the first to do it, not to invent it, but the first to do it well. That's not innovation, that's called execution. Execution may well be more important than innovation. It's worth celebrating, it brings in lots of money, it's the key to success.

Xerox PARC innovated like crazy, but executed poorly. It took other companies, such as Apple, to take Xerox's innovations and turn them into successful products. Ethernet was an innovation that was limited to the niche of Xerox-only networks until Xerox teamed with Intel and DEC. Intel executed well, making chips that made Ethernet affordable. DEC executed well, incorporating Ethernet into nearly all of their products. 3Com and Novell then took it into the PC market. That's the difference between innovation and execution. Xerox innovated. Intel, DEC, 3Com, and Novell executed Xerox's innovation well.

Apple is very good at recognizing when the time is right to meld multiple innovations into a product. They don't need to be their own innovations. In other words, Apple excels at product development rather than research. The issue is muddled because most companies and the press usually lump the two together as R&D, but innovation comes out of research rather than development.

Apple does many things well, you've pointed out some of the things that Apple does well, but you've used the wrong word to describe it. You aren't the first and won't be the last to misuse the word; advertising agencies and marketing departments misuse the word daily.

It's more than that. This is the Republican version of Public Campaign Financing. Corporation bribes, that is, makes campaign contribution to politician. Politician arranges sale of public property to corporation at discount price, or finds other ways to ensure windfall profits in excess of contribution. Lather, rinse, repeat.

This happens over and over again. Politician steers public property or tax dollars to corporation, corporation contributes part of that money back to politician. Yes, Democrats do it too. The difference is that Democrats are willing to talk about real public campaign financing, while the Republicans rail against it. Rail against spending tax dollars on campaigns, while making sure that tax dollars go to their own campaigns, suitably laundered through corporations.

You've misread that first part. It states that the SFC has asked for source code unrelated to Busybox, and makes no statements about the license of such non-Busybox code. Perhaps they asked for other GPL code, such the Linux kernel. Perhaps they asked for proprietary code that's covered by an NDA.

Lawyers like fishing expeditions against their adversaries, and oppose them against their clients. It's their job. But I'd be happier if they stuck with their own client's code, not looking through all code trawling for potential clients.

Read again. Sony doesn't want to infringe the terms of the license. Other companies do not want to infringe copyright, either.

Pretend that you work for Sony. Your project uses the Linux kernel. You're sure that you comply with the GPL, so there's not much risk in using the Linux kernel. You want to comply, you're taking steps to comply, and someone on your project screws up, you know that the kernel developers just want the additions to the kernel source code released. That's what you want, too, so no big deal.

Then there's Busybox. The lawyers involved with Busybox might use your use of it to demand a look at all of the code for your project, not just Busybox. They might want to look at other projects, too. They might want an open-ended fishing expedition into all projects in all divisions of Sony. Even if everyone, including suppliers, is clean, that would cost too much time and manpower to be worth the risk. The amount of time it saves your project to use Busybox is not worth risking every project in the entire company to an audit.

The GPL has advantages for businesses. Companies can collaborate on software without violating antitrust law. But there are risks, too. No one likes audits. Not by the IRS, not by the BSA, not by SFLC. Audits cost you time and money even when you did nothing wrong. Some people think that the risks of using Busybox are higher than the rewards, even if you fully comply.

Some people are too annoying to buy from, to sell to, to work for, to deal with in any way. Yeah, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and FreeBSD each have a slightly different focus, but personalities also enter into why there's more than one BSD project. Yeah, XFree86 introduced an unnecessary, unacceptable change to their license, but when you get down to it, Xorg forked because of personalities; people in control were holding the project back.

I like the GPL as a license. I like most of the developers who choose the GPL. But in any group, there are bound to be some assholes. I don't know if that's the case with Busybox, but I'm open to the idea that assholes can choose the GPL.

Game companies do get paid when the company sells the game. Now that copy belongs to someone else. That's what 'sell' means. No company deserves to be paid when someone else's property is sold. But that's what they want. They want to be paid for selling it once, and then get paid again when the original purchaser sells his own property. It ain't your property any more after you sold it. What's hard to understand about that?

There are other business models that would keep money flowing to the game company. They could lease or rent games. They could sell under a contract that governs resale. But if they want to make a simple retail sale under state laws following the Uniform Commercial Code, then the terms are simple: once you accept value in exchange, what you sold no longer belongs to you and you have no say in its resale.

Game companies, if you don't like the terms and conditions of retail sales under the UCC, then don't sell your games that way. If you like the simplicity of sales under the UCC, then suck it up accept that purchasers have the right to resell when they no longer want your game. Maybe you should figure out why purchasers don't want to keep your games. Maybe you should stop worrying that someone else made money from reselling something that you already got paid for once.

Making used copies worth less just proves that you're control-freak assholes. Sales of used copies does NOT lower the initial sales; people will pay more when they know they have the option to sell their copy later. Anything you can do to reduce the value of a used copy reduces the value of the first sale. Car companies advertise the high resale value of their brands as a good reason to buy. Why do you guys have this backwards?

I don't see anyone claiming that all accidents can be avoided. Some can be avoided, others can be made less serious.

When I drive, my eyes are always moving. I was taught to use all three mirrors. When I get in an unfamiliar car, such as a rental, I adjust all of the mirrors before moving. This seems to be unusual; most people jump in, adjust the seat, and leave. I know women who seem to think that the center mirror is for applying makeup. It's not hard to be more aware than the average driver, and you can avoid accidents if you are.

No, you can't avoid all accidents. I was rear-ended in city traffic, a friend's car was hit in his driveway by someone who jumped the curb and drove across his lawn. But I've avoided being hit by someone who suddenly changed lanes into me, avoided a crate which fell off the truck in front of me, avoided the car that passed me in the rain and then spun across all four lanes.I slowed when the rain came down harder and the road went from wet to standing water, I knew he was going too fast for conditions, and didn't panic when he spun. I braked hard enough to avoid him, but not so hard that the guy behind me hot me. Situational awareness is critical.

There are good habits and bad habits. They make a difference.

No, Universal does not have copyright to the music involved, which was what made it newsworthy.

"They're saving quite a bit of money by not printing and storing a physical copy of the book in question."

That's not true. It's not even close to true. Printing and shipping are a minor part of the cost of a book. The major cost is editorial and marketing, which are the same for printed and e-book versions. Authors need to be paid. Editors need to be paid. Cover artists need to be paid. Proofreaders need to be paid. Book designers need to be paid. Books rarely sell themselves; marketing is important, regardless of the book's physical form.

You can skip some of these steps and related expenses if you self-publish. Conventional print publishers won't let you make that mistake. It's easy to find e-books that show how big a mistake it is, but the difference is not between print and electronic formats, it's between standard publisher-financed books and self-published books.

What I miss with electronic delivery is time-based pricing. Print disguises this with different physical forms - hardcover, trade paperback, mass market paperback - but the essence isn't the form, it's that early adopters pay higher prices than those who wait.

If the contention is that money spent on Firefox is yielding poor results, what does that suggest about money spent on projects that most people can't remember?

Of course people complain about change. But there's more, and you've dismissed it.

There are tasks which can be done with the old version which cannot be done with the new version. It's not a question of learning a new way to do it, it's that there simply is NO way to do it.

Sure, people complained about the ribbon interface in the new version of Word. That's what you are talking about. What if it couldn't open old documents? That's what I'm talking about. What if the new version couldn't print? Those are the type of issues some users are complaining about. If all you ever did was business letters, maybe you wouldn't miss opening old documents. If all you ever did was email documents, maybe you would never miss printing. Those people are happy with the new version, which is better in other ways. But the new version is not usable by businesses which must provide printed documents, or revise old documents, and so on.