But usually people prefer to just dismiss without much thought, since the topic became taboo.

Largely because it's all been demonstrated to be either fake, a gross misunderstanding of what's happening, or so totally un-repeatable by anyone else as to be suspect.

Group-thinking is surely a fucked-up human characteristic.

Right, all those people who still think we live on a flat earth or that the world is only 6000 years old are the victim of groupthink.

Or, you know, if you make an extraordinary claim, you're gonna need proof.

and how would that work ?

Well, in the good scenario, an energy based economy which suddenly became free means we get unlimited cheap power and can do a great deal because it's no longer a scarce resource we're competing for.

In a bad scenario, the technology gets hidden away, or we still end up paying the same for everything, but the people selling the devices print money like mad fools by enforcing artificial scarcity with patents.

So their logic is that the scanner itself is not infringing (so companies like Sharp and Brother aren't liable) but the act of connecting the scanner to a network and having it send scanned documents as PDF files is infringing on a patent. That is what they believe makes the end consumer liable.

Well, then they can sue the companies who made the technology for scanners which integrate with your email system.

It's not like those customers went out and built that functionality themselves and in the process infringed on a patent, they used a feature implemented by the company who sold it to them. To the company who uses it, it's a black-box.

So either the scanner companies are liable for producing an infringing product, or the companies who make the email systems are (which would be insane), or this is bullshit. I'm voting for the latter.

This is a shake down for after-the-fact licensing of features provided to you by someone else.

Except this is "help pay for my legal defense against this, and I won't sue you for that".

The suggestion of a lawsuit over an unrelated matter would definitely seem to be a threat, and would therefore be extortion, no?

So, "give me money to help defend against this lawsuit or I will file one against you" isn't extortion?

I'm not sure I agree with that interpretation.

So the only way to stop these scammers is to actually litigate

Oh, it's not the only way to stop these guys ...

I'm pretty sure this was just bullshit lawyering, not some principled stand of protest against the patent system.

This reads much more like shady asshole lawyers than any caped crusaders. Because good guys don't send threatening legal notices to innocent bystanders and demand settlement money.

Assuming of course, they ever actually owned any patents, which I'm not certain they did in this case.

I think a very simple law should be put into place which outlaws "NPEs." That would put a dent in the operations of these low-overhead trolls.

Even more so, don't let them directly sue consumers.

If I can walk into Wal Mart and buy a product, and you think that product infringes on your patent, you can sue the company who made it, but the consumer can't be sued.

This is a case of people being sued for using scanners -- technology we've had ready consumer access to for quite a long time.

Consumers should be indemnified from such things -- they didn't infringe on your patent, they probably have no idea what you're talking about. By the time you can walk into a retail store and buy a product it should be too damned late to sue consumers.

This is just shaking down people who are using stuff that has been readily available since the 90s, and which you can buy damned near anywhere -- what's a scanner cost these days? An all in one printer is what, $50?

If they haven't been filing patent lawsuits by now, they've essentially given up any rights to be suing anybody, let alone end users of technology which an be picked up pretty much anywhere.

"I find X to be strange" is another way of saying "I'm pretending that I live in a magical, X-free fantasy world."

No, it means quantum mechanics is some weird shit that most people can't really get a good handle on without a faulty analogy involving a cat.

And, if it skips past our understanding of time a little (like entangling two things which don't exist at the same time), then it gets into some really weird shit that most of us can't get a good handle on.

In my experience the /. editors do edit.

Maybe I should have put "edit" in "funny quotes".

It's OK. I'll just put an end to the discussion now. There is no such thing as an ephemeral Internet. It is a myth. All your naughty words, deeds and pics are archived by a number of different services including The Internet Archive. Such a thing is not possible: the Internet is actually designed to prevent it. Various means of showing your naughty bits over the Internet to one person only for only a brief time have a number of design flaws including "THE ANALOG HOLE".

What I want to know is how entanglement doesn't crap all over relativity since changing one changes the other no matter the distance instantly. Also does anybody have a clue as to HOW the state is transmitted instantly, no matter the distance? Simple logic says there has to be SOME connection between the two going on but so far it seems no matter how far away they are from each other its still instant,so how is it getting there? Is it some sort of energy? Does space mean nothing in the quantum realm?

If they can figure out how to get this stuff down reliably though it does open up some cool applications, space communications for instance.

You might be interested in reading about the experiences of Temple Grandin.

It seriously takes you 30-60 minutes to clean up after cooking? What the hell are you doing - spreading it all over the walls and ceiling?

It takes me about 15 minutes to do the dishes from a 3 course meal for 4 (though usually it's 1 course for 2 people) - including wiping down the counters and cooktop as I finish. For more complicated meals, I often do dishes while the food is cooking (e.g. if I've made lasagne from scratch, or something else that's made in stages), so that the overall prep/cleanup time is shorter. But I wouldn't usually do that type of cooking mid week on a work night.

Generally lunch is sandwiches, I buy the ingredients twice a week when shopping for other meals. I make the sandwiches up before doing the dishes at night and they take about 10 minutes to do for myself and my husband.

The way you become efficient at something is through practice. If you have a number of easy recipes in your repertoire, you can either knock them out really fast, or know which ones you can let sit and cook for a bit while you go do something else, like making a casserole and kicking back watching TV, reading or whatever while it cooks.