Watch who they choose to put into their cabinet. That is how you can tell. Tim Geitner was a huge clue that Obama was just more of the same and his hope and change schtick was just rhetoric.

So what you are saying is that the problem with electing a non-creep President is that none of the creeps in the rest of government would work with him to stop the creep. I guess we're doomed then. All we can do is continue to elect creeps that will work together in harmony to spread the creep. Better we have harmonious creepiness than to just start somewhere to begin to stop the creep.

"Web technologies need to support DRM-protected media to reduce the risk of parts of the web being walled off, the chief executive of the web standards body W3C"

corrected version:

"Web technologies need to support DRM-protected media to keep the fat checks coming under the table to the chief executive of the web standards body W3C."

They should make it so the first post cannot be anonymous.

Note how people call "Xbox 360" "The 360". It is obviously MS marketing gimmick where they hope people will call "Xbox One" "The One". Personally I am hoping that people call it "The X-bone" so it backfires on them.

Yes it is true that it is possible. But there is no -ism that can overcome human nature in the long run.

Compare his comments about the hobby of building and flying model airplanes http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/private-drones-pose-privacy-threat-says-googles-eric-schmidt-1C9340969 with Schmidt cautioned against jumping to the worst conclusions, saying that society always tends to adapt to new technologies — and he's hoping for etiquette rather than government regulation.

Let's actually test it and find out. This would be a study I could get behind with my tax dollars (unlike this one: http://now.msn.com/duck-penis-study-cost-395000-dollars). If we find out no one can tell the difference it is going to save a lot of disk space.

Java install has been crap for a while, even before Oracle got it. It should have always remained just a ZIP extraction. They also do their best to confuse between JRE and Java with the compiler (which then includes JRE, but it isn't the same JRE directory locations.)

To come up with a decent system, we need to start at the beginning. What is the purpose of the patent system and is the implementation of that system actually fulfilling that purpose. We must first consider if there is really is any benefit to software (actually all) patents or not. There are essentially 3 cases in the marketplace I can see.

case 1. Two almost equally sized companies working on the same product(s). This situation does not seem to require patents. Let them compete on execution. The one to think of it first has a head start already, they don't need to be granted exclusive rights.

case 2. Smaller company tech is reverse engineered by large company and then out competed in the marketplace by the larger company with more resources. This case is the only one patents help with and should cover.

case 3. Independent inventor develops an invention that they believe they can sell or bring to production later but currently lacks to the ability to do anything with the idea.

It seems like we do need to allow some sort of limited ownership of tech to prevent case 2 from stifling startups. Also we should have provision for those without the means or fortitude to bring an invention to production to have the opportunity to pimp their inventions without fear of loss. So for patents to work as a benefit to society, they need to operate something as follows.

1. Startup company files a patent to give them exclusive right to develop a new product they thought up first. Patent includes deliverables and development timelines. Company pays a yearly fee along with updates to the timelines. If timelines are missed by more than 1 year on each update, patent is invalidated. (This to make sure progress to market is actually being made.) Company is given 1-5 years exclusive market rights after the product is delivered (depending on the product) to recoup costs and establish a market.

2. An established company (one with at least one product on the market and revenue) can file a patent only to keep (1) from preventing them from developing a product. That is, since (1) allows startups to block an established company from entering a market for a period, if the established company thinks of an idea first they need a way to keep that from happening. Patents from an established company do not require a development timeline since they cannot be used to prevent anyone from developing the patented technology.

3. A non-practicing inventor can file a patent (without development timeline) and then pay a yearly fee to keep it under their control. The fee will increase steeply every year and have a time limit of X years (X = 10?). The increasing fee will prompt them to develop or sell rather than just sit on the invention.

As far as I can tell, this scheme would fix the patents system to be beneficial to everyone that actually does something. (ie. not lawyers or politicians). See any holes in it? Why wouldn't this work?

They said the same thing in Jurassic Park and we all know how that one turned out.

If I were given a task to draw some translucent images I may or may not come up with doing it this way. If I did, it would be because I thought of it (or read it in some academic paper) not that I looked through patents to find it. And if I did think of it and it seemed like an insightful way of doing things I might write it into a paper, but I would never even dream of making a patent on it. Then later is somebody going to go looking through my code to see if I happened to do something they have patented? To what purpose? What a waste of effort. What selfishness to think that because you thought of something first and wrote it in a legal document that anyone else that thinks of that after you has to pay you. I just cannot see anything good or useful coming from patenting things like this. Can you?

From that press release: "and its Curiosity rover are less than four months into a two-year prime mission to investigate".

What exactly is a "two-year prime mission"? Is that like "2 years !"? 2! years == 2 factorial years == 2 * 1 years == 2 years. So essentially it is a fancy redundant way of saying it is a two year mission.

Or maybe they mean that it is a "prime" mission in the sense of a "prime" cut of beef? It really is a super-duper A1 top mission. Not one of those crappy lesser missions we are always hearing about.

Why are you and many posters above you assuming that just because MS puts out a new OS every year people are going to upgrade every year? Given past experience it is highly unlikely MS can put out an OS ever year that has significant enough improvements to warrant the trouble and cost (however minimal) of upgrading. I'll believe it when I see it.

When I was registered as Independent my phone would not stop ringing around election time with political calls. Now I am registered as Republican because I wanted to vote for Ron Paul in the primary. No phone calls. I am voting for Johnson. They can count me as Republican on paper as long as they leave me alone and I can still vote for whoever I want.