I agree with you completely.

In my mind a lot of the problems we are seeing with patents are that when they were granted they may have been innovative, however when tech geeks today look at them they seem obvious.

People need to realize that the idea that was patented was likely validly granted at the time of filing, yet would not be granted today. However that does not make the protection of the patent any less valid.

One solution may be to shorted the lifetime of SW patents.

And, for better or worse, the validity of patents is not determined until a court challenge is made.

How old was the Radeon chip when you bought your motherboard?
Did you buy a cheap motherboard with an ancient GPU on it to start with?

I am not saying that AMD didn't screw you over, it just seems that without the full back story your statement doesn't hold a lot of credence.

This whole fiasco reminds me of a few years ago when it was determined that you could open one of the Kryptonite bike locks with the end of a Bic pen. These were the locks with the circular keys. In the end, I think it was due to a class action suite, you could get a replacement lock for free that used a different key type.

If every hotel chain that that uses these locks sues, then they will get a replacement deal of some kind.

I was also fortunate enough to take a formal logic class, I believe it was called "Introduction to Logical Thought".

I enjoyed the class so much that I would advocate requiring some minimal level of formal logic be taught at the highschool level. It would be a lot more beneficial to make every student learn this than to make them all take pre-calc or calculus.

Note: I am not advocating limiting the math courses available to highschool students, I just think there are more applicable things that can be taught as required material.

I believe he was getting more at the point that since the processor is designed and manufactured in China, it could have the spyware built right into the silicon.

Ah thanks for the clarification, I had forgotten about that type of add-on accessory.

So you don't want your phone using the battery while it is sitting in a dock? That doesn't make any sense. The dock charges the battery so there no reason that a bit of extra processing will make a bit of a difference.
Do you have any ideas for interesting application that the CPU cycles can be used for while it is sitting in said dock?

Only if they are eligible for a new contract at the time. Most people will be somewhere in the middle of a contract and will likely have to pay something between the $199 and the $500 for an early hardware upgrade.

Maybe they should get Microsoft to write them the mobile Apps. I haven't had any major problems with the WP7 Facebook App.

Actually if they are really careful they will not have any emails about issues like this. My wife worked in the office of an public official a few years ago and there were certain things they were not supposed to ever mention in emails, because then they would be archived and available for public request.

So True! However we still pay a fair bit more for the same items here in Canada vs the US.

My answer: "++"

Be sure to turn on two-factor authentication on the second secondary email as well. Maybe you can use your main email as a place to receive the authentication code.

What is the standard deviation of that percentage?