Yes. Exactly. It seems the economy is in a tight cycle. It has become reliant on its own success. However, all bubbles eventually burst. Normally they do not involve so much of the general economy (such as the dot.com bust) but housing and stock prices contribute to the majority of wealth in society's hands. The government is to scared NOT to do anything that it is only trying to continue the cycle where it left off. Good luck.

The problem with your argument is that the $4/gal price was last year and the invasion was several years ago. The price changes are due more to refinery capacity and consumer pressures on the supply at the time.

It sounds more like a problem with the use of law in dealing with patents than that actual patents themselves. Similar to filing frivilous lawsuits to stop activties someone is against. It is not the legal process but the use of it that causes problems. Also, where does this prize money come from and would it be of sufficient size to provide the drive for innovation? I admit I have little understanding of patent law so that lack may be keeping me from understanding fully these ideas.

I think if you invade a country for natural resources, the price those resources and their derivatives should go down. It was working out much nicer when we bought the resources for fair market price and turned our heads to the massacres going on in said countries. At least the world didn't need to see the deaths happening. It was blissfully unaware.

I think because it keeps wealthy people from dominating the arena. If someone creates a product or process and it is free to be duplicated by anyone, people with more capital will always be able to run those people out of business. By providing rights to production you allow those people who developed the idea to get some head start on building on their idea.

"I" could use more women. But I don't see any government agency offering awards to subsidize that area. But good for her for getting the recognition she deserves.

Please accept my apologies if it came across as a personal statement. I only meant to point out that there is a strong voice from people that digital content is out there for the taking and that payment should be strictly voluntary. People use the reasoning that there is "unfairness" built into the current delivery system and that with the advent of the internet they are merely circumventing this unfairness by not paying anything for the content they consume. While producers, whether musicians, developers or artists, wish to provide access to their material on the internet that is their choice. They have webpages and can create personal liasons with digital outlet. But to take content created and distributed by secondary parties such as record producers and put it out for free consumption is actually cheating the producers out of fair compensation for their investment in time, packaging and original distribution.

Capitalism is not soft and fluffy. It is hard and sharp-edged. Better to teach a person their mistakes when it is mis-handled.

Interesting that when it's Apple products it's called "thieving". For DVDs, music and other digital content it's just sticking it to the man. Rationalization can free you from any constraints.

I for one welcome our new Danish overlords.

Let that be a lesson to you not to brush your teeth while you drive!

I don't believe in rewarding brokers of stuff. Good point. Less innovation is to be found in Hollywood. Sequels and remakes and rip-offs, oh my! p.s. You're much more honest than I am too.

Can I get this from torrent already? I'm not cheap. I just like to tie a couple slashdot topics together when I can.

These scanning tools use feature relationships to validate identity. Distances between eyes, brows to nose, etc. Dozens if not hundreds of evaluations. As long as the person's face has matured to a point that it will not deviate from the scanned metric such things as piercings and make-up should not affect it. Plus, if the students are scanned at regular intervals you can keep the database up-to-date. Whether the tool is robust enough to differenciate between a real face and a printer image remains to be determined.

More like a cesspool of political malfeasance.