The ocean is freezing, the sub is well insulated, that traps heat. Even if you stop the rapid oxidation of the material in the compartment the heat does not dissipate instantly, so as soon as you open the compartment the fire will start again. Also the stored heat will continue to deform/ weaken the material that makes up the compartment.

Look at the coal fires that have been raging underground in PA for decades.

That is not to say that they did not seal off compartments, just that the whole situation is more complicated than just sealing the compartment until there are no visible flames.

Anything that makes court opinions more accessible is a good thing. Your concern about "privately owned services" is about 200 years too late and ignorant of the way court opinions are presently published.

The present system is WestLaw Lexis or another legal publishing company publishes decisions of note, i.e. only decision that change something in the law. Your average case is never published. You have to pay major money to get access to this material.

The courts do store decisions but in such a difficult way to access that it is not worth the effort. Are you going to go and wait in line for a civil service person to go and get the physical copy of the official court opinion, every time you want to see it? Imagine trying to get hundreds of documents from the DMV everyday. And then paying photocopying services because the official court document cannot leave the file storage room.

Isn't this the problem with all hobbies? As you mature and get older you move away from things with which you used to fill your leisure time. Hobbies drop off and are filled with spouse/kid/work related issues.

When the typical editor noted in the article ages through the honeymoon/kids period of their lives, I would suspect they will return to editing Wikipedia, even more so when they retire from work. The typical editor will return to editing just like the typical person that built models as a kid or played with toy trains, when they have leisure time to devote without distraction.

This is nothing new. They had a program in 2009 called Clear to speed you through screening and it was abruptly shutdown without explanation. http://daggle.com/clear-airport-security-program-closes-707

It was then started again, but more limited. http://daggle.com/clear-airport-security-with-all-downsides-2179

So... how long will this incarnation last?

That is pretty cynical, federal judges are appointed for life and get a pension after retirement. Could the MafiAA offer a bribe that is worth more than guaranteed income for life, plus a high likelihood of a professorship at a lawschool, or partnership at a big law firm, after retirement? Pretty unlikely.

You fail to prove your point. You equate corporations to patent trolls and then go on to talk about how corporations have money and small inventors do not.

The definition of a patent troll is an individual that files patents with no intention of exploiting the patent themselves. Patent trolls typically have few to no employees their only assets are patents they purchased from others. Patent troll income is derived primarily from bullying others into questionable patent licenses.

If company X has a factory that makes widgets and they have a patent on widgets, then they are not a patent troll, even if they sue to prevent other from making widgets. Maybe you think everybody should be allowed to make widgets, but that doesn't make company X a troll. That is the power patents grant, to prevent other from using your invention for 20 years (in the US). If you don't like that, your problem is with the patent system as a whole, not company X's trollish-ness.

Both corporations and individuals can be patent trolls. Your discussion of corporations v. "the little guy" is irrelevant to the issue of legitimate inventors v. trolls.

First to file encourages people to file for patents sooner rather than waiting for someone else to file and cutting them off with a first to invent claim.

First to file doesn't favor patent trolls, they can't patent the invention if someone else was using it publicly and didn't bother to patent it.

If anything it cuts off patent trolls because they can't keep inventions a secret waiting for someone else to file a patent, and then usurp that patent from the original filer.

Don't you need to dominate the market to be considered a monopoly? Last time I checked Apple only dominates the hipster/ trust-afarian/ techno-snob markets. Plenty of other markets for fledgling entrepreneurs.

Mr. Wu seems to be saying inflammatory things to increase book sales.

You cannot serve process by mail using a 1st class stamp. You have to use a special class of mail with signature service and return receipt requested, the postal employee does not leave it without an adult who says that they can accept mail for the addressee, signing for it. Also, when you mail it, the process server has to have to physically affix a copy of the suit to the address you are mailing it to, its called nail and mail. Nail it to the door, mail a copy also.

So your anecdote about your neighbors junk mail is irrelevant to this discussion.

thedirt.com got served in error, ignored the papers, and this is what happens when you ignore court papers. This is fixed easily enough by showing up to court now and correcting the error.

The court system works just fine, thedirt.com sitting on their ass and not correcting the error in the beginning is the problem. They would have been able to recover whatever it cost them to respond from the plaintiff that erroneously served them.

So a defendant can avoid all liability by not showing up and ignoring the court? That sounds real fair to the victim. Why would you ruin someone's life by allowing wrong doers to avoid liability by placing their fingers in their ears and chanting 'Nah-nah-nah i can't hear you" to avoid a lawsuit.

Also, let me point out thedirt.com claims it wasn't properly served, yet got the paperwork with the judgment to give to the press, which is all served in exactly the same manner. It must be magic.

Your answer to this one instance of a mistake in paperwork that results in an easy to nullify judgment is to impose Napoleonic Code? Other than the Napoleonic system (which is used be France Mexico and Louisiana) the US has imported most of the spirit of European systems. And to boot you want to allow judges to make up numbers through "simple inspection", that allows judgments to be crafted on something based on nothing other than net worth. That sounds real fair to the plaintiff.

In reality, this judgment is going to be nullified once thedirt.com gets off their lazy ass and goes to court. You can't impose a penalty on the wrong party, in civil or criminal court. But that doesn't mean thedirt.com isn't going to try to milk some free advertising out of this.