This was floated on this past Sunday's TWiT. Leo Laporte aped Jonathan Schwartz saying, "Oh, and then there are these patents -- the engineers say they were really more of a joke than actual claims, but -- there's at least a few billion in there for settlement money, so after you pay the lawyers, you should clear a few milliion."

The new meaning of justice is revealed. It's "revenge," aka "closure."

This is the old "protecting our way of life" meme. It is not an inclusive use of "our." It is the government saying, "We and our cronies prefer it this way."

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. ~the Declaration of Independence

Agreed. The problem is with the term "first to market." Its meaning relies on perspective. What is the market? Retail space on Best Buy shelves? Direct marketing via late night television ads and browser pop-ups?

I remember a story about a guy who thought of dunking banana slices in chocolate and mixing them with banana flavoured ice cream. He showed this to some food company, which turned him down and then marketed it themselves. Many other examples abound. Maybe Robert Kearn's story (he patented his intermittent windscreen wiper design before approaching Ford, then Chrysler) is a better context for the question: Who was first to market? The inventor who tried to market to the corporation, or the corporation that stole the idea and marketed it to genpop?

Even if the good guys win -- whomever the good guys are, for you, in this squabble -- regulatory agencies in these United States are crack whores, fellating the same corporations that the legislature has put in charge. The rules are for show. Gives a whole new meaning to money talks, bullshit walks when the regulations are widely known to be unenforced, even unenforceable.

That, by the way, is the definition of corruption, i.e., the opposite of integrity. Integrity is much more than some soporific ideal about what is right. It's about strength, and durability. What is the integrity of the chair you're sitting in right now?

Given that the x axis represents time and the y axis represents knowledge and/or skill ... The curve is steep when one must get knowledge/skill to a high level in a short amount of time. Your point is well taken, though; I've used this description many times in the past without realizing that some really do spend more time mastering a tool. My vi learning curve looked more like a staircase. I'd dig in and figure out how to do whatever I needed next (the rise), then rely on that for as long as I could (the run).

Meh. Big, expensive, proprietary in-house solutions are rarely the best IMHO. The USAF could have made a deal with Sony.

Naked short selling is most certainly not illegal -- when such trades are executed by a market maker, and/or when the broker/trader believes that shares will be available. A temporary SEC order remains in place, originally designed to restrict trade on certain "systemically important" firms, and has since been expanded to cover all firms.

BTW, speeding is also illegal, and practiced as a normal method of driving by most licensed drivers. Given the difficulty in proving naked short selling, I doubt that the practice has decreased significantly, any more than criminalizing bookmaking has impacted the illegal gambling industry.

I'll grant that shares in a company are legally tangible.