Too early to call, but Microsoft gradually crappifying their OS and breaking win32 compatibility (by removing secdrv) while Valve is heavily investing in SteamOS and win32 compatibility is the biggest business risk since the Detroit Big 3 started gradually crappifying their cars in the 70s while the Japanese and Europeans were catching up.

As I've said above, I shouldn't have to pay for a governmental office whose sole purpose of existence is to give someone else a limited-time government-granted monopoly. Let the beneficiaries pay. Limited-time government-granted monopolies are a privilege, not a right. If thoroughly examining the average patent filing takes such and such amount of time and the people who examine them work for such and such rates, then that's how much filing a patent should cost (plus the bureaucracy costs per patent). Then the USPTO can hire people accordingly. But not doing any of that benefits the corporations in two ways: less cost to file and less scrutiny for their patent filings. The real reason so many junk patents are granted is because filing is relatively cheap and scrutiny low (and invalidating a patent is relatively expensive, so many targets of junk patent lawsuits choose to settle).

BTW if we ever singularity (doubtful), patents would simply cease to have meaning, since machines would invent everything in seconds and then... stop. At this point, humanity can choose to dispense with the whole concept of patents, since there would be nothing to file for and no reason to reward inventions anymore. But again, singularity is the kind of thought experiment where the hypothesis does all the heavy lifting but is highly doubtful it will ever become a thing.

And you don't understand patents don't reward labor, they reward inventions. It's entirely possible the "singularity" future that people here are dreaming never pans out and AI does all the menial labor (including producing generic art as it does now) while being unable to invent things (or do creative work in general). In that future, humans will be left doing creative work and the reward for that work will be a limited-time government-granted monopoly in the form of copyrights and patents as it is now. Keep in mind that software copyrights can be worked around by making similar software. Patents expire after 20-years or so, so if there is nothing more for humans to invent anymore as you implied in your comment it will all be over in 20 years or so.

Also, some countries already don't respect patents and even copyrights, but the patent and copyright holders simply collect from the countries that do.

Considering the energy requirements of AI, I am doubtful if it will be even near-free, and by the time we reach a point where AI can determine the validity of a patent, we'd have probably reached post-labor utopia where everything is done by AI anyway. BTW this is a new spin on the talk about "singularity", in the sense that the initial hypothesis does all the heavy lifting but there is no evidence it will ever become true.

How about we clean up the patent system so it doesn't cost "tens of thousands of dollars" to apply for one. And as a result, pretty much force individual (non wealthy) inventors to have to assign their inventions over to a corporation.

Applying for a patent will always cost a substantial amount of money because the people who determine the validity of the patent filing won't work for free, and the operational cost of running the whole bureaucracy related to patents isn't trivial either, and I don't want my tax money to be used to fund an office whose sole purpose is to give someone else a limited-time government-granted monopoly. Let them pay for it (if they want their limited-time government-granted monopoly so much) when they apply for a patent.

Also, I am aware that the USPTO isn't known for doing a good job at determining the validity of patents considering the kind of junk that slips through (see Unified Patent's blog if you want examples), but my reasoning stands: The people who should determine the validity of the patent filings aren't going to work for free. If anything, it should cost more to file for a patent so the USPTO has more people to examine the patent filings more thoroughly instead of sacrificing scrutiny for speed.

Also, if you have spent the R&D to make any modern invention worthy of a patent, your filing costs are trivial in comparison.

I never understood why they didn't make the Cybertruck out of anodized aluminium, considering Tesla has experience with aluminium. Every EV automaker out there (including Tesla) is experimenting with ways to cut weight, yet Elon decided for some reason to use thick stainless steel body panels on the Cybertruck. And no, it's not bulletproof unless you convince whoever is shooting you to use special subsonic bullets.

Coren steel can rust to the core under the right conditions. From the source you provide: sea air does not create an effective protective layer. The high concentration of corrosive products in this environment prevents the rust stabilising. Wikipedia also has some examples of corten structures that never stopped rusting due to climate conditions under the "weathering steel" article. Now imagine what would happen to corten body panels being sprayed by road salt and water.

*stealing not selling (though they most likely did it to sell the metal).

Is anyone surprised? The price of metals is generally going up, while punishment for thieves is generally going down (because prisons bad or something). Yes, this is true even in the red states. Meanwhile in Europe, theft of electric wires from railways has reached an all-time high.

If the punishment doesn't deter, thieves get more and more emboldened, to the point of selling a frickin' 200ft broadcast tower. Simple as that.

Cryptocurrency exchanges are required by law to take your real name before they open an account for you. Yes, I am talking about proper identification using an official form of ID (passport, ID card, driving license) and your ID is verified with a webcam scan. Also, you kind of need to provide your real name to the government to make a claim in a bankruptcy case. So, for FTX customers, anonymity wasn't a thing before.

BTW the only way to have anonymous cryptocurrency is to create a wallet yourself using local software and send crypto to the address of that wallet via those "Bitcoin ATMs" that don't require identification (if they exist in your region/jurisdiction), and hope no camera spotted any recognizable characteristics or movement that can be traced back to you while you were doing it.

The article refers to the extraction part of production (including offshore) not refineries.

>These customers weren't actually asking for the Bitcoin itself, but for the amount of money (dollars) that that Bitcoin would now be worth.
Does it really matter (if it's actual Bitcoins or the amount of money in USD those Bitcoins would be worth with current prices)? It's the same value, I am sure customers would've been fine with either, their problem is that they are going to get the November 2022 price. This is a side-effect of having an asset pretend to be currency: the law doesn't care about someone's "decentralized finance" fantasies, it's an asset as far as the law is concerned.

> It's ironic that, as you say, cryptocurrency is designed to work around the banking system and its regulations. But now these same people who owned crypto, want the government system to bail them out. Seems to me they want it both ways.
Yes they do want it both ways, yes it's ironic, no they are not going to get what they want.

When it comes to climate change, it doesn't matter where the CO2 from fossil-fuel production is released (climate change is a global phenomenon), so, you are still "adding pollution by producing", you are just offshoring it somewhere else. But I guess it makes the "progressive" liberals that are the majority in California feel good and virtuous, so here we are.

As I say above, cryptocurrency was designed to work around the banking system, so the only protection FTX customers have is a bankruptcy claim. So, the price of the assets is determined at the time of bankruptcy (November 2022). But anyway, they might not even get that, it all depends on how much money the liquidation raises. Keep in mind Caroline's gambling lost the equivalent of $ 8 billion in customer funds, so it's dubious whether the liquidation can cover that even with the rise in cryptocurrency prices.