I just hope they don't get discouraged at the number of downloads and installations that don't receive donations. I suspect that a lot of people are like me--they don't mind throwing a few bucks their way (or even a few dozen), but we tend to install, reinstall, set up virtual machines, install yet again, and so on across dozens of machines. I might give a one-off donation, but I'm not going to donate every time I install a copy of Ubuntu.

That's one of the things that's so damn frustrating about Windows and why Ubuntu (or really, any Linux distribution) is so useful. Windows is an awesome OS and I don't mind paying the license fee to run it, but I don't have a few thousand dollars to install it on each of my hobbyist VMs I use for development and testing stuff. Back in the days when I could just use my product code to install it willy-nilly on a few dozen machines, each of which I probably run for a few days and then reinstall for some new reason, it's not that big a deal. But now that everything phones home and nags the hell out of you and denies you service to what you bought, it's not such an appealing option. Hopefully Microsoft will someday realize that they're actively driving people like me away from Windows, but until then, I'll happily cast my lot with Ubuntu instead.

That's what experiments like the Biosphere are for, to test the feasibility of completely self-contained self-sustaining miniature ecosystems. If you just sent up some bacteria and a whale, you might be right. But if you sent up some plants that can live in the thin atmosphere and photosynthesize the sunlight there and add in some bacteria that can digest the dead plant matter and release nutrients that the plants can use as food, then within a few centuries, you might have a jungle. At that point, you might be able to send up other lifeforms that can live and thrive in the new ecosystem without destroying it. Keep iterating this process, and the planet might just be habitable to us in some not-insurmountable period of time. Even if not, who knows, it might be more conducive to using for various resources.

No, he did not answer "yes." This is from the transcript of the voir dire:

THE COURT:The next question is, have you or a family member or someone very close to you ever been involved in a lawsuit, either as a plaintiff, a defendant, or as a witness?

Let's see. On the first row, who would raise their hand to that question? All right. let's go to Mr. Hogan.

PROSPECTIVE JUROR: In 2008, after my company went belly up, the programmer that worked for me filed a lawsuit against me and ultimately, across the next few months, it was dismissed and in such a fashion that neither one of us could sue the other one for that matter.

THE COURT: What was his -- what was the employee's claim?

PROSPECTIVE JUROR: It was a dispute over the software that we had developed, whether it belonged to the company or to him, and I had documents that showed it belonged to the company. Ultimately, as I said, it would -- we settled out of court and it was dismissed.

See what he did there? Instead of saying "yes," he answered as if that were the only case. By omitting the other two cases he was involved in, he effectively misrepresented that this was the only case. I'm sorry, but it is extremely foreseeable that being sued by Seagate is a material fact that should have been disclosed. He also lied later in this exchange:

THE COURT: Okay. All right. Thank you.... So I want to make sure that both Mr. Hogan, and Ms. Rougieri, that you would apply the law as I instruct you and not based on your understanding of the law based on your own cases. Is that correct, Mr. Hogan?

PROSPECTIVE JUROR: Yes.....

THE COURT: Okay. All right. Would that in any way -- you'll be instructed on what the law is and would you be able to follow the instructions I give you on the law, even if it may not completely correspond to what you may know about the patent system or the intellectual property laws?

PROSPECTIVE JUROR: Yes, I follow your instructions.

He said months ago that his own experiences relating to patents helped him decide how he should rule, and then he proceeded to "help" other jurors understand based on that information--NOT the judge's instruction. And his statements since have indicated that he was going out of his way to be on this jury so that he could be a part of this big case.

It all looks pretty straight-forward to me. The guy borrowed $25,000 from Seagate in 1991, didn't pay it back, got sued, declared bankruptcy to dodge his financial obligation, and apparently still is buttsore about it. In 2012, he had an ax to grind against Seagate, he hid relevant information to get on the jury so that he could grind it, and then he proceeded to trash Samsung--the currently majority owners of Seagate--to get back at them. And now he's going out to the press and lying about the questions and instructions to not look like the tool he is.

I hope they nail his ass to the wall for juror misconduct and that Samsung gets an actual fair and impartial trial out of it.

You're wrong. I bought an SSD the other day that used to sell for $200, but now they're selling it for $600 off. I'd post a link, but I--hopefully understandably--don't want everyone else to ruin my supply.

If you're a player of the game, you might have run across me at some point. I'm TonyV, the creator of the Paragon Wiki web site and current owner and administrator of the Titan Network sites.

I'm really hoping that this won't be the end of the game. I've posted a message on the official forums here (and on the Titan Network forums here discussing what I'm intending to do. It might not work out, in which case four months down the line, we're not going to be any worse off than we are today. But if you're reading this here and don't browse the official forums very often, please drop by. As the game's continued existence will depend on a crowd funding effort, we really need you to stay plugged in over the next few months. I'll post regular updates on our Titan Network forums to let you know how it's going.

You are 100% correct. This guy is undoubtedly seeing dollar signs on his own patent, and if the jury had invalidated Apple's patents, I honestly believe that he thinks it would hurt his ability to monetize his own patent. It's very telling to me that he had an "aha" moment not about what the decision should be, but how to "explain" to other jurors why they should side with Apple. It seems to me that he had already made up his mind which way this trial must go, and he was just trying to figure out a way to convince the other jurors to go along with him.

The thing I'm wondering, though, is does that matter? I mean, once a jury has rendered a verdict, can you actually have it overturned because it's later found out that a juror has ulterior motives? Isn't that why the lawyers have an opportunity to strike jurors before the trial starts? And if so, why the hell didn't Samsung's lawyers ask the jury pool if anyone had any patents? It just seems to me that if I were Samsung, I'd want a jury that doesn't have any patent holders on it. Not that there's anything wrong with patent holders, but I would fear that any patent holder on the jury would be financially motivated to push for a system much more in favor of patents and would rule with Apple on the case to protect their own interests, which I'm convinced is what actually happened in this case.

IANAL though, so I can't answer these questions. Maybe someone else here who is a laywer can weigh in.

It most certainly has, and it's most certainly working. :(

The sad truth is that there is pretty much only one way: Make so much money so quickly that you build up a war chest capable of mutually assured destruction if someone sues you. Otherwise, your best bet is to get just big enough to be bought by a megacorp and hope that they give you the leeway to keep working on your project relatively unfettered.

Independent inventors/developers/designers/whatever simply don't have a chance in today's patent environment. Ironically, they are screwed by the very system that was originally set up to protect them.

So honest question, how many links will it take for you to accept that the theory of evolution is correct, that mankind did, in fact, evolve from single-celled organisms, and even simpler life forms before that? You don't have to give an exact number, though you're welcome to if you want. Just a ballpark figure would work fine so I can get an idea of what your standard of proof is. Because to tell the truth, most Creationists I've met have answered, "There is no number of links or any amount of proof that will convince me that evolution is real and a viable explanation for how we got here," and if that's the case, then there's absolutely no point in trying to convince you otherwise.

Which, incidentally, is why Bill Nye says that it's such a disservice to teach it to kids. Because science isn't about throwing up your hands and chalking explanations up to God or any other supernatural process, it's about seeking answers to questions you don't know the answer to. It's not about throwing away valuable knowledge when inconsistencies are discovered, it's about studying more and refining hypotheses, tweaking theories, to more accurately represent the laws of nature. It's not about forming an end conclusion that must be correct and then looking for evidence to support it, it's about taking what you know and forming rational conclusions about it, even if that is inconvenient to other things you "know" to be true. Creationism is antithetical to all of these goals, and thus has no place in any scientific discussion, including biology class.

Again, the Bible does not say this. If you're a strict interpretationist, as most people pushing Creationism are, then you not supposed to read too much into it. The purpose of the story seems pretty evident to me, to scare the hell--literally--out of kids so that they worship the appropriate god and don't question that authority.

That's almost reasonable, but I still don't quite buy it. The angels could have warned them, "If you look back at the wrath of God, you'll be turned into salt and die, so this is really important." Or surely God could have done his thing without the nasty side effect of onlookers being turned into salt. It still strikes me a deliberately cruel and petty. Shoot, the angels struck the people who came to rape them the night before blind, why couldn't they have just temporarily blinded Lot and his family as they traveled out of town?

You're right about Job. As I re-read the Bible as an adult, I found a lot of stories in it that reflecting upon now older, had me thinking, "Damn, why would anyone want to follow this religion?" No wonder Christianity took off like it did, what with Jesus telling everyone, "Meh, that Old Testament stuff, don't worry about it so much. God is more like a caring dad, not an evil omnipotent twisted demon from hell who delights in torturing people." Much more palatable.

How do you know that? I don't see it explained in the Bible that way. We're not told what was going through her head, what she was thinking. Maybe it helps you rationalize it by thinking that she must have been internally celebrating past transgressions, clinging to a life of sin, but if you believe the Bible to be literally true, which is what folks who believe in creationism believe, this isn't some allegory or metaphor for embracing sin. We don't know what was going through her head. If the story were literally true, I'm sure the whole family would have been thinking about what they were leaving behind. We're talking about a woman whose only sin at that time that we know of was physically turning around. That's it. Not refusing to leave, not gathering up remembrances of her sinful past, not even so much as saying, "Gosh, I don't know about this, are you sure we have to pick up and leave everything we know behind?"

All we know--all the Bible tells us--is that she turned around and looked back at the city where she had probably spent her entire life, where her friends and family lived, burning to the ground and everything she knew being destroyed. I'm sorry, but it still seems remarkably petty and vindictive for God to punish her at all, especially by killing her like that.

Funny you should mention Sodom and the tone of the Bible, as having grown up firmly indoctrinated in the Christian church, the story of Lot and his wife were instrumental in me realizing that 1) a lot of it (no pun intended) is hooey, and 2) even if it's not, I don't want to follow this god.

For those who don't know, Lot and his wife were told to flee Sodom and Gamorrah before it was destroyed by God for being so wicked. They were told to not even look back at it by angels sent to help. On their way out, though, Lot's wife turned back and looked, and was instantly turned into a pillar of salt.

Obviously, the moral is not to screw around with God. If he tells you not to turn around and look at something, you'd better damn well not turn around and look or else the consequences could be severe. Practically speaking, though, I was never able to get past how insanely petty this was. This woman presumably had family and friends left in the city. There's presumably a lot of hoopla and chaos happening. Why did she turn around? Was it because she couldn't bear the thought of her family and friends suffering? Was it because she wanted to make sure that the rest of her family was going to make it out alive? Was it just a loud noise that caught her attention? Who knows? Maybe she thought the angels didn't literally mean don't look back, kind of like how even today we say, "I left my home and never looked back." In most cases you don't literally mean that you didn't turn around and catch one last glimpse of it, you just metaphorically mean that you moved on with your life.

At any rate, we have a woman who was probably just an average schmo, likely not particularly evil, else the angels wouldn't have bothered rescuing her. Her crime was taking one last glimpse of the family, friends, home, and life that she would never return to again. She was obviously a loyal follower of God, as she simply picked up and left based on the word of two strangers saying they were angels and her husband who, incidentally, offered two virgin daughters to the wicked men of Sodom intent on raping Lot's guests. So if you're keeping score, Lot offers up his two virgin daughters to be gang raped and gets to live a happy, productive life. Lot's wife commits the cardinal sin of turning around to see everything she knows destroyed by fire, and does she get any measure of sympathy or mercy? Oh hell no, she's killed (or worse, she wasn't and is eternally suffering, being forced to look back at the destroyed city) for something that anybody in their right mind should understand and would probably do.

Anyway, I empathize with Lot's wife, and like I said, this story made me realize that I don't want to follow a god that is so petty and vindictive that he would do such a heinous thing. If that means I'm going to hell, then so be it. Spending eternity slavishly following such a spiteful creature seems like just another definition of hell.

Yet here I am, thousands of years later, and people following this crap are teaching their kids to doubt science, that if the Bible is interpreted as A and science says B, you'd better go with A. After all, if God would punish an innocent woman by turning her into a pillar of salt, you don't want to fathom what he'd do to you if you believe in evolution. Bill Nye is right, teaching creationism to kids as anything other than a fanciful myth is crazy and a disservice to them, their community, and mankind as a whole.

...yet. Now that they've won against Samsung, if the verdict stands, do you honestly think they won't start going after other companies? Mark my words, if this verdict stands, Samsung was just the first and we can look forward to a whole new slew of "trade dress" and patent lawsuits.

In fact, I'll even go so far as to predict that if this verdict stands, Apple will have basically hung themselves. Now, every Tom, Dick, and Harry who has ever built anything will be looking to patent the crap out of it all because it's clearly not acceptable any more to have something that cosmetically looks and vaguely works like something else any more. And when Tom, Dick, and Harry go looking for people to sue because hey, that thing has a triangle on it and my thing has a triangle on it, so they owe me a kazillion dollars!, who do you think they're going to go after? The companies with the deepest pockets, of course.

As has been pointed out a lot in these threads, a lot of Apple's products look almost identical to products that came before. Sure, Apple has endured some lawsuits, but nothing on the order of what they've just put Samsung through, and most people--especially large corporations who want to coexist with them--were content to just leave them alone. Not any more, though. The "thermonuclear war" of patent lawsuits among the big players is now starting, and this is inevitably going to do as much harm, if not more, to Apple as it is going to everyone else.

Also, I have to point out that I honestly believe that we had a so-called "runaway juror" running things. In an interview, the jury foreman told the local newspaper that he owns a patent. If you look up that patent, it is for a TiVo-like device that he patented several years after the TiVo was released. With such a large verdict, this opens the door for him to sue over his patent and get a crapton of money from it. Why Samsung didn't strike him from the jury is beyond me, but I wasn't there so I don't know. Other potential jurors may have been worse. At any rate, he is on the record that he wanted to "send a message," "we wanted something more than a slap on the wrist." This is in spite of the judge's instruction that damages shouldn't be assessed to punish the defendant. Other jurors have said that they were influenced by this guy. "He owned patents himself... so he took us through his experience. After that it was easier." Yeah, I'll bet it was.

I hope for the sake of everyone--including Apple--that this verdict is overturned and overturned quickly. As someone who grew up geeky and who loves technology, it scares me and angers me that we have gotten to the point where "it kind of looks and works like an X, but with these features and innovations" is the standard by which billion dollar-plus awards are given for "copying." I can't think of any modern device that we enjoy that hasn't come about by iterative innovation by multiple people and companies.

I own some Samsung devices, and I didn't buy them because they were "copies" of iDevices. If I wanted an iDevice, I'd buy an iDevice. If you present any iDevice and any Samsung device in front of me, I will immediately be able to tell you which is which. If you hold them up fifteen feet away, it might take me a second, but I could still do it. If you turn the device on, I could probably tell you which is which from 20 or more feet away, even on phones with relatively tiny screens. To someone who's not as familiar with mobile technology, maybe they couldn't at a quick glance, but within a minute or two, I could show them enough that they'd be able to tell you what the differences are between them, including advantages and disadvantages of each device. No one is going into stores wanting an iDevice and walking out with a Galaxy Whatever.

Did Samsung "copy" Apple? Maybe in the sense that anyone who designs a car with an engine and four wheels is "copying" Ford and his Model T, who in turn "copied" car makers before him. I'm not a car person, so if you show me a Honda, Toyota, Ford, Nissan, etc. that are more-or-less in the same class of car without the logo visible, I honestly couldn't tell you which is which. When I'm in a car, it's not like I have ever once thought, "This feels like a Toyota!" Does this mean that every car manufacturer is running a massive copying scam because some layperson schmoe can't really tell the difference between them? Because that's exactly what this verdict is saying. To hell with the actual differences that someone more in the know can explain, to hell with the innovation that Samsung has built into their products. It kinda sorta looks like an iDevice, so now they're on the hook for over a billion dollars.

If this verdict stands, god help us all. Seriously, I predict three consequences: 1) A crapton of new "design patent" lawsuits are going to flood the courts as people and companies figure out a new way to extort money from others who are innovating, 2) innovation takes a nosedive downward as people and companies are going to be frozen in a sea of patent mines that simply cannot be avoided, and 3) other countries that don't have such strict patent laws are going to quickly surpass those that do in virtually every area of technology. As a side effect of #2, you're going to start seeing a reversal of the trend of integration of new functionality into devices and software that interoperates with other software. No one will want their product to be mistaken for kinda sorta looking or working like someone else's for fear of being dinged a billion and change.