While I don't dispute your basic premise that programming languages should be taught in curricular liberal arts colleges (and indeed I was required to "learn" one at mine), I would argue that there is more to be gleaned from an understanding of literature or history or geography than there is from understanding a programming language. A programming language teaches you the particulars of how to realize software within the context of that software. You might be able to take away some general concepts regarding how computers work, but understanding how a computer executes software is a far cry from understanding how to read and write code.

Traditional liberal arts courses provide a broader understanding of what defines humanity. There is a breadth and interconnectedness in those courses that is not present in programming languages which are essentially practical knowledge. For example, if a student learns KOBOL, 90% of what he learns will be practically useless today because little of the Framework upon which to hang that knowledge still exists. At best the student could keep the generalized concepts, but that is a negligible portion of the material learned. But if a student reads Faulkner, while there may be significantly less practical application, a much greater portion goes to explain the general repository of humanity and its collective knowledge (southern culture, how we process death, Reformation, how the mentally challenged mind works, etc.). A better solution would be computer literacy courses rather than programming courses. I use my knowledge of geography significantly more than I use my knowledge of Java and C++ on a day-to-day basis. That doesn't mean I shouldn't know about computers generally, but why waste my time learning a practical skill set to glean the global knowledge when so much of the practical material will be useless to me?

Wooh, another completely incorrect Slashdot title for the win. Because the pics DO disappear when you open them. Both from your phone and their servers. There's just an exploit where rooted phones can view/copy the pictures before they are opened/deleted. "Don't disappear" =/ discretely copyable.

OP is not at all wrong, and it's bullish of you to suggest that a business should simply change its entire operating strategy to account for the limitations of the install base of the operating system. I worked as a CTO for a niche retail business (wine) which had certain custom measures to track in order to maintain basic levels of inventory management (e.g. multiple vintages and sizes use the same SKU). The stores had already deployed Macs for their POS due to the business decisions of my predecessor. I spent months trying to find a POS system that could handle anything beyond the "my first retail system" level. I found three retail POS systems at all. One of them we were already using -- and it didn't work, one of them was similarly barebones and locked down all of the database material so I couldn't export to something like Quickbooks, and then there's Lightspeed, which is big, costly, and spends more time and energy on advertising "It Works on Mac!" than it does providing any utilitarian function whatsoever. I gave up and installed Windows 7 on the systems through BootCamp, opening up at least 30 wine-retail specific POS systems for my pleasure.

Nearly all cross-platform software suites don't talk to one another. Quickbooks won't talk between Mac and PC. More specialized office applications and database applications won't talk to one another. There might be a FEW that will provide interoperability, though it's often buggy beyond belief, and most don't provide critical features necessary to certain businesses. Try and find an actually usable service-based POS (QSRs and restaurants). There are none. I'm sure that's because the Mac hardware is not touchscreen, which makes the OSX unusable to an entire industry.

If the general topic is about replacing your fleet of bulldozers with pickup trucks, parts commonality between the trucks and bulldozers is a pretty important metric.

This is an outrage! We have set up strict trade sanctions to prevent this exact kind of thing from happening! The circumvention of these sanctions is reckless and might endanger the freedoms of Syrian citizens everywhere. To think that we would simply allow Syria to acquire Dell PCs is unfathomable. We need stronger provisions and enforcement mechanisms to make sure that Dell PCs and the dangers that they present do not wind up in the hands of other innocent countries. We must strengthen the already tough sanctions against Dell!

Hating DRM is trendy here on Slashdot, and I'm usually the first to decry it. The problem is not with DRM but with shoddy and opaque implementation of DRM -- i.e. when its implementation hurts honest consumers.

There are a couple good reasons for DRM. One -- and please bear with me here, I promise I can justify it -- is to stop piracy. Okay, yes, DRM as it has been implemented by the vast majority of businesses has been nothing short of abysmal. It punishes the honest consumer without presenting so much as a stumbling block for hardened pirates. There's actually a lot of argumentative parallels here. Why have gun control when criminals will break the law while honest people won't? Why outlaw drugs when people who want to do drugs will do them anyway? These are actually really important arguments. However, while the contrast is stark, it's not a black-and-white scenario. Simply because we have the Second Amendment here in the states doesn't necessarily mean we should be giving everyone a rocket launcher. Marijuana might not be harmful, but should we really let people make meth in motels and poison all of the other guests?

In these scenarios, the key question is what is "reasonable" regulation. In other words, the question is what is economically efficient -- what methods and standards will save us more money in the long run than we will spend? Do we need to install backscatter machines in the airports to protect against terrorists? Probably not -- we'll never see that money back. Should we deregulate and let on someone carrying an RPG? Also, no. The cost of preventing people carrying RPGs on airplanes is minimal compared to the savings. Even assuming I were lawfully carrying my RPG for non terrorist-y activities, what if it accidentally detonated? The savings are greater than the cost.

The same is true with DRM. The problem that consumers have with DRM is that it robs them of the cost of their experience. I paid full price to get some gimped, server-dependent version of the game that was not what was advertised to me. DRM right now is like backscatter machines in airports; it assumes everyone is a criminal, attempts to push the limits of personal freedoms and privacy, and ultimately is probably motivated by greed more than user experience. But that doesn't mean that DRM itself has to be evil or bad. While there are plenty of textbook cases out there of people who download to try-before-buying, or who live in a country where the software/game is unavailable via legitimate retail, there are also a plethora of people who simply want to download a product without paying for it. They'll justify it with the same reasons -- "I'm punishing the developers for X" or "I can't afford it right now." This assumes that the user has some inherent right in the product that gives them the ability to use that product without paying for it. To be honest -- and I know this is going to be an unpopular view -- but the same can be said of regional restrictions. Nothing gives me the personal right to download and play a Japanese game in the U.S. I might justify it by saying that I'm not hurting the copyright holder if he couldn't have sold it to me in the first place. I might think that I have an inherent right in the public domain, that copyright is (as it is) artificial and should only be presumed where the rightsholder is enforcing his rights (i.e. not in the U.S.). But legally that's not how it works. Nothing specifically grants me the right to use something that I have not paid for. Part of the difference is due to internet culture buying into the notion that information is free and should be shared amongst everyone. We recoil when the capitalist world starts to encroach on our free internet with their advertising and paywalls and out-to-make-a-buck mentality, so we flee the corporatized services like Facebook in search of something more open. I digress, though, and that's a different issue.

DRM's problem is in how it's implemented. Inevitably the cost of implementation is greater to the consumer than the value gained. Inevitably, DRM means that I have a broken product, and had I simply pirated the unlocked copy I would have received an unbroken product at a cheaper/free cost to me. That's not so much the fault of DRM as it is its horrendous implementation. Always-online requirements, server checks, dongles, security keys, and other such nonsense create additional points of failure at which software can break. Transparent, low-key DRM on the other hand significantly reduces my user-experience cost. The reason why a lot of people say "Steam gets it right" is because Steam is so minimally intrusive on my game experience. A one-time registration online is mostly harmless and has only affected me personally once. There is a cost associated with that, and there is a cost associated with the inability to resell my games. However, that cost is more than offset by the tremendous discounts Steam provides. Therefore, the cost to me for DRM is negligible.

Don't buy the industry's overinflated numbers where every download must translate to three purchased products stolen (one for each system or some nonsense). It still would be foolish to truly believe that piracy doesn't have a cost. The cost is less than the industry claims, but it's still there. And what costs the business ultimately costs the consumer. At its most basic element, copyright was created to "promote the progress of useful science and arts." Ideally, more money into the business will result in more created products. It might not work out that way every time, but the Call of Duty franchise is a good indicator that sales translate to sequels at minimum, and even sometimes studios that do well will create entirely new IP. At some point -- perhaps a point well below where we are now -- piracy hurts the bottom line, and a worsened bottom line results in less intellectual property being developed, which ultimately hurts the consumer.

Anecdotally, look at Steam. Look at how many publishers celebrate Steam - DRM and all - by comparison to something DRM-free like GoG. Look at how many success stories have come out of that distribution platform, all in spite -- I would argue in fact because of -- a very lightweight DRM that is attractive to developers and a non-issue for consumers.

The second issue, and perhaps the easier sell, is that DRM is appropriate when you need rules and structures for online communities. Requiring an always-online, first-party server for an MMORPG is actually draconian DRM. We tend to accept it, however, because there's an inherent value in having a well-regulated, reliable gaming community. Take Blizzard's World of Warcraft. Without DRM, I could simply inject gold into my account and buy anything I wanted. For single-player games this hurts no one, but in multiplayer games, I'm now able to crash the economy and disrupt other people from enjoying the game in a way that they want. Similarly, I could wall-hack and bot any first-person shooter, cackling maniacally and easily getting my $60 out of whatever XBox multiplayer shooter I happen to be playing. I would be doing so at the expense of the other players' enjoyment, however.

DRM is effective in these multiplayer environments that need a basic set of rules to govern how players interact with one another. When I play Battlefield, I expect the servers to kick users who aren't complying by the game's rules. The only way to do this is through DRM, because the server is managing and controlling the rights of the player to enjoy the game.

Ultimately, first-party servers are soured because companies like EA and Microsoft wind up using their first-party controls to do more than regulate the conduct of a game. EA took the "It's an MMO!" mentality and applied it, terribly, to SimCity. In that game, users realized that there was no reason to call a sandbox game an MMO. EA merely performed lip service to link up cities and force interdependence to justify greater DRM and greater control. It was arbitrary and forced. Microsoft actually had a good deal going with XBox Live -- pay for dedicated servers and an officially supported online network. Once upon a time there was value in this. Then the dedicated servers disappeared, so now you're paying for the right to host games on your own Xbox. Then ads started popping up, so I'm paying for the privilege to be advertised to. Some of you might remember that broadcast cable, once upon a time, was introduced as the "subscription, ad-free alternative to OTA!"

Thus, the problem with DRM is that it's just so easy to abuse. That doesn't mean that DRM itself is a problem, though. It is possible to implement DRM in such a way that it provides more value than it takes away -- these instances are usually so transparent or rare that they are overshadowed by the catastrophes of EA, Sony, and Ubisoft, so we tend to recoil at DRM altogether. At the end of the day, it simply boils down to what is economical for the consumer -- not necessarily what is economical for the publisher, though ideally the two should go hand-in-hand.

What you describe is mutually exclusive, and therein lies the problem. If it's a federal tax then it does fall under the purview of the Commerce Clause, which would make it legal although nevertheless a very bad idea, because it doesn't solve the alleged problem (i.e. states not able to recoup revenue). However, as you point out, that's not what is going on at all. The bill specifies that Amazon must conform to state and local tax laws which are attempting to tax Amazon based on sales to the state despite Amazon et al not being present within the state. This is definitively a tariff between states, taxing and price-restricting out-of-state goods to cause the market to favor domestic, in-state products, and is exactly what the Constitution prohibits because trade must remain free (as in liberty) between the states. If the federal government wanted to tax it as interstate commerce it very well could. The states, on the other hand, can only tax sales made within the state, and if the seller does not have an established presence within the state, then the sales occur in the other state where the business is domiciled.

Um, what?

If it's "unconstitutional as heck," then no, no it absolutely should not have happened sooner. You don't just get to flagrantly violate the Constitution -- you know, the document that enumerates states' and citizens' rights -- because it somehow promotes local tribalism. Go amend the Constitution if you want to make something unconstitutional suddenly constitutional. Otherwise, you just basically said it's a good idea to flagrantly violate the fundamental law that has serves as the core of the United States because it affirms your limited idea of what constitutes economic efficiency.

If a state's sales tax is so high that it is more economically efficient to ship the product from a different state at least 48 hours transit time away than to buy from within the state, it's a pretty clear indication that the tax is too high, or the distribution models within the state are lacking. By your logic, we should violate the GATT 1994 and place punitive tariffs on incoming products from China because they rob hardworking Americans U.S. jobs. Because clearly that's a more logical and economically friendly policy than reducing the number of domestic legislative restrictions that sent those jobs overseas in the first place.

Descriptive terms can still have a trademark where they have acquired a secondary meaning in the marketplace, which is how iPhone and iPad have survived. From the USPTO refusal:

And then:

Essentially the problem is that the whole term "iPad Mini" is descriptive, because even if "iPad" were (and it is) a protected trademark, you can't say "small iPad" and make that whole mark trademark-able, which is what "iPad Mini" attempts to do. While the application deconstructs the "iPad" term as merely descriptive (which is unfortunate because it probably makes this ruling appealable, since I don't think the prior trademark applications relied on the secondary meaning exception to a descriptive mark), that's just salt in the wound. The real reason it was denied is because they tried to call their iPad "Mini" and trademark the whole term. It's still quite possible for Apple to use the "iPad(R) Mini" mark denotation.

Also, for those who don't know, (R) is a registered trademark that has been filed with and approved by the USPTO, whereas (TM) is an unfiled trademark that you nevertheless use in business that could stand up to another company using your trademark. (R) [federal] will always trump (TM) [state].

Pyrrhus was an aggressor against Rome who spent exorbitant sums of money to achieve small victories that ultimately led to his losing the war. Veoh was not an aggressor and was bankrupted before the victory could be achieved. In fact, the RIAA and MPAA could be said to be Pyrrhic victors considering how much they spend in litigation without any profit from collection. The proper expression here would be "hollow victory."

"Well that's fantastic, a really smart decision. We can put a DRM requirement into a traditionally single-player game, then we'll require a permanent internet connection to thwart piracy aaaaaand it's gone."
"Uh, what?"
"It's gone. It's all gone."
"What's all gone?"
"The DRM on your game - it was circumvented, it's gone."
"What do you mean? The game is social and computational. It requires servers to make all of those calculations and connections!"
"Not anymore it doesn't. POOF."
"Well, well what can I do to get back my customers?"
"I'm sorry sir, but this release is for DRM-employing, user-abusing companies only."
"But we're EA!"
"Do you have any DRM on your game?"
"No, you just hacked it!"
"Then please stand aside for companies who actually have a poorly-implemented DRM scheme on their game. Next please."

You keep on using that word... I do not think it means what you think it means.

Seriously, does he legitimately expect that I'm going to suddenly ditch my phone and throw the contents of my wallet at him for a product that makes Navin's Opti-Grab look stylish simply because he's calling me and one-seventh of the human population -- including women -- castrated girly-men?

The concept of "fighting fire with fire" is little more than an extension of tribalism. At that point, you're no longer sticking to altruistic standards but simply advocating a formless "us vs. them."

To obtain a patent, you need to be able to reduce it to a practicable description, meaning that you do have to show exactly how the patented device works with enough particularity to make it functional right now. Future patents aren't granted. The idea behind it is that if you figure out how to do it but don't actually do it, you've told other people how to do it by posting the patent, and therefore you deserve royalties from that (which means that implementation isn't stymied, it's just expensive). In practice, what we've done is encourage the development of patent trolls given the free transfer of patent rights like property. This could either be fixed by limiting transfers of patent rights or by requiring a modicum percentage of active use and implementation. To require that you actually practice a patent is unfair, though, because I could not reasonably practice implementation of a novel and revolutionary ion space drive or nuclear reactor even if I could design and perfectly describe it on paper.

The idea is that copyright is supposed to benefit the life of the heirs as well as the author, else a 70-something year-old might not have as much incentive to create if he only expects to get a couple years revenue off of it. I'd prefer a system of a flat number of years, like copyright once was and patents still are. 28 was reasonable, 28+28 is acceptable. Life + 70 is overkill. 14 years on patents wouldn't be bad if 1) software patents were actually drawn up by people who knew what the fuck they were doing [the good software patents never become an issue], or 2) software patents didn't last for more than a couple years.

Dude, read the full article. Seriously.