Kelvin is the only system that *actually* makes sense if you want to say things like "it's twice as hot" or "10% warmer." When I hear someone say 64F is twice as hot as 32F, I just shake my head.

I appreciate the sentiment. I do agree with your overall assertion that the IP system is horked, all varities included. I have some ideas that are patentable under the current system. I have to choose between executing them without a patent and getting sued by someone else later or patenting and detailing the secret as a starting point for a company with deeper pockets to squash me with slight tweaks to my design. My limited understanding of the recent patent "reform" is that prior art will be replaced by a first-to-file system.

I apologize. None of the other replies were visible to me at the time. Am I the only one just noticing this weird filtered-threaded view? I'm not a fan.

I don't know why this is moderated as insightful. The poster has no understanding of the distinguishing features of copyright, trademark, and patents.

Point 1 - right Point 2 - right Point 3 - wrong, wrong, wrong Why do you think people get so up in arms over Supreme Court openings and nominations? They do indeed have the last call on interpreting and applying the Constitution and, in fact, all American law. The Congress tries to override their decisions from time to time, but if the decision is based on Constitutional law rather than merely common law or precedent, the Supreme Court wins. It is serious stuff, so when you vote for President you should be voting for the person you want to have in charge of nominating these justices rather than the lesser of two evils or the guy who helps you assuage your guilty feelings (I won't go further down that particular thought path further, because that would definitely open up the controversy).

I wish you all the best and offer my most heartfelt appreciation for all you have done. Slashdot has been a part of my daily life as long as I can remember. If I had just signed up instead of lurking, maybe I could have had a lower UID to go with my obsession. Any time I am sitting on the couch with my laptop and half-listening to my wife she asks "are you working or Slashdotting?"

I've heard various explanations of the recent earthquakes, but I am starting to suspect it is the universe trying to adjust to all the tech leaders resigning this week!

True, but you are bringing up completely irrelevant facts to make a point. This discussion is around Java VM initialization, not web development.

Brian who?

As a Java developer, I regularly find myself misreading directory listings containing Maven POMs as p-o-r-n.xml.

Don't worry. I was once quite good at writing textbook penmanship, but I dumped it anyway. I think the readability argument for cursive is terrible. It seems everyone I know just adopted whatever they liked of cursive. If they thought an upper-case S or Q looked funny or it was too much work to make a well-formed lower-case r, they just scribbled some alternate rendition. Take everyone's individual quirks and you basically get something unreadable. I read something previous in the thread about 60 to 80-somethings, and I can tell you there is nothing readable about my grandparents' letters. It is quite taxing to read them.