I'm not saying the legislation is good (haven't read it). However, it's not a "self-correcting problem" because many people can't identify a fake. Furthermore, if I fat-finger tifany.com and buy some jewelry, I may not know that it's fake until after I get the merchandise. There are after the fact remedies, but there is a good argument to be made for preventing these problems in the first place.

It looks like a list of companies that have a lot tied up in their trademarks. Monster Cable is always suing other people over the Monster name. Xerox has always been on the verge of having it's name genericized. Fashion houses have almost their entire value in their brands. At least the tech companies can fall back on their patents to defend their turf.

I suspected this may be true so I googled a bit for this number, but couldn't find it. An even better number would be the number of applications abandoned.

Or just turn the laser up to 11.

Obviously they are different things. According to WSJ, a computer programmer "Organizes and lists the instructions for computers to process data and solve problems in logical order."

Wasn't the flash crash caused by incorrect time stamps, though? If quotes are not being stamped correctly, how would you detect the delays? (no, I did not RTFA)

Are you pondering what I'm pondering? Perhaps the cell phone boom is causing the magnetic pole shift!

No true Scotsman would disagree with you.

That's fine. Email an extremely large code to the email address on file. When the user follows that link, you whitelist their current ip. Some effort, but far better than a compromised account. I guess this won't protect email though.

The purpose of mod isn't to reward commenters. It's to raise visibility for worthy comments. So next time, mod anon up so that people reading on +2, etc. can see the good comments.

You think people appreciate the cost of education when their parents pay? No. How about when they take out loans? Most students I know have no idea what their educational debt really means (of course, this is a pervasive problem in our credit card culture). So I guess the only way to properly instill an appreciation for the cost of education would be to force people to work-study or pre-pay their tuition without debt. Unfortunately, while work-study will increase appreciation, it will reduce the amount of time the student has to, you know, study.

Well, if it really bothered you, maybe you'd be more likely to hit mute or change the channel. Then they would lose an advertising opportunity and presumably revenue would go down. On the other hand, maybe the increased volume is effective for the vast majority of people, so they don't mind losing you as a customer.

That said, I think a 50 year problem is worthy of regulation. I'd say the FCC or FTC should do it without congress needing to write a bill, but that kind of thinking doesn't often go over well here.

Straightforward is not the same as obvious. Plenty of patentable ideas are easy to implement once you hear the idea from someone else. I haven't read this particular patent history, so I am only addressing your apparent assertion that anything easy to do should not be patentable. I think the appropriate standard is not how easy it is to do something, rather how easy it is to invent something.

You are voting with your wallet, but did you make your reasons known? It may seem idiotic, but I'm sure someone at an airline is looking at the numbers and saying "people aren't flying anymore, it must be because they DON'T FEEL SAFE... we must make them feel safer by launching operation anal cavity probe!"

The boa then proceeded to test the fences, systematically looking for weaknesses.