So after a year of waiting, would the ebook prices come down as well?

What exactly does a publisher do when a book is sold in electronic format? If what they do is still valuable, then someone will pay them for doing that. If not, what's the point of publishers?

Well similar articles appear in US media whenever some kid has early success in science or technology. As evidenced by the fact that this piece of news has even made it to Fox.

I would agree in general that Germany doesn't suffer quite as much from anti-intellectualism as the US, but it's not a black and white scenario, either.

It's possible that he has dual citizenship, but that seems unlikely given that he only arrived in Germany 4 years ago and didn't speak any German at the time. 4 years would be a bit short for him to receive citizenship otherwise.

None of the German newspaper articles I found refer to him as German, so I'm inclined to think it's simply an error in the article.

"Unique" - are you serious? Sorry, but the amount of nationalist conceit in that statement makes me want to barf.

I don't see how that could work. Usually patents are submitted on the basis of source code which you've already written, but regardless: it's way easier for a programmer to write software than to write a legal document. I don't think that would add a significant hurdle for patent submissions.

What role would the example code have? If the patent scope is limited to the function of that code, that's basically reducing the patent to copyright. Someone could extract the general algorithm and write their own version. If the patent claims list still determines the scope of the patent - and the code is just one possible implementation - then adding that code makes no difference, you'd be in the same position as today.

No matter where you stand on this case, surely the guy wasn't the *sole* cause of his roommates death?

They have a software system and servers to display the content, they have a well-connected marketing department which successfully sells advertising, they have a development department which is able to add features and keep users interested. Those are assets which are difficult to create, so they have value.

Their business model is similar to a TV station, showing content for free and getting paid for ads. (In addition Facebook has users who create the content, so they are getting that part for free.) You can argue how "tangible" that is, but it's certainly a viable business model.

The share price is dropping not because Facebook as a business is worthless, but because Facebook shares are massively overvalued when you look at the fundamentals and the growth potential.

And yet, they're made up of separate people. The ones harboring child molesters aren't likely the same ones doing the internet filtering, but because they share the title of "Orthodox Jew", they're lumped together in one big at-fault bunch.

The event is organized and supported by the governing bodies of these communities. Yes, they are the same people who should look into preventing further child abuse, they are the same people who are not cooperating with the "secular authorities", the same people who should do something about it when victims are excluded from their communities. They are not random Orthodox Jews, that's just not true.

Hang on, that's not quite it. These are actual religious communities - not just groups of people lumped together because of some shared characteristics and referred to as communities in order to avoid charges of racism.

As communities they set rules for themselves, and have structures to do so, and to control and enforce these rules. So in this case it's actually fair to ask why these communities focus on a topic like internet use, rather than addressing a wide-spread child abuse problem.

This is not specific to one religious group - e.g. the catholic church has systematically covered-up child abuse by its priesthood, too. That shouldn't give any group or organization (religious or not) a free pass, though - quite to the contrary: any of them should be questioned whenever something like this comes to light.

Well, Germany now has the Pirate party represented in it's fourth state parliament (Berlin: 15 seats, Saarland 4 seats, North_Rhine-Westphaliav 20 seats, Schleswig-Holstein 6 seats). They are polling at 11% for the federal elections.

One senate seat doesn't seem like all that much...

so most people are getting screwed.

Most people don't make anywhere near enough money to get even close to these brackets.

Indeed there is hope for us all. Most of us nerds find the prospect of coding a website which eventually nets a billion dollars, less daunting than the idea of talking to a girl. Who knew it could be that easy?

Hmmm ... I think a new tech boom might be just around the corner.

Well, if you are working for a company which has no money and which you think will never be worth anything, then you should look for a new job in any case... Apart from that - it's going to be difficult to find a company whose stock is a worse bet than a lottery ticket. Even with Yahoo or Nokia you have a decent chance to avoid a 100% loss.

Well, if a company doesn't have the money to pay proper wages they can instead offer stock. Certainly you can keep working for them in the hope that they'll offer you a fair wage once they make enough money, but even then you are still out of a few years savings. At some point you will want to retire and those 3+ years you lost will be 3+ years you need to work longer. Who knows whether you'll even be able to find a job when you are older, and continuous wage dumping and outsourcing will have made it even harder to get reasonably paying jobs by then.