s/advertising/newspeakanalysis/

The country is looking ahead to the World Telecommunication/Information and Communication Technology Policy Forum, or WTPF.

Does anyone else see some kind of irony here? W. T. Policy F.???

You are the Dream Operator.

--Talking Heads, "Dream Operator", True Stories, [Sire Records 25512-2, 1986]

True random.

And what is more random than free will?

'exosyzygy'

Best. Band. Name. Ever.

You don't get to patent arbitrary methods. Yes you do. Arbitrary: subject to individual will or judgment without restriction; contingent solely upon one's discretion. An 'arbitrary method physically instantiated' is commonly known as an "invention"; a time-limited monopoly on its control is called a "patent'.

Furthermore, OP is wrong, as well. An algorithm is an *arbitrary* expression of a *creative* method of solving a problem. Your choice of the *expression* of that method is what is arbitrary; it's only necessary that it be comprehensible to the patent examiner, so that he or she may then understand the originality of your method. It is the method which is original. That method *is* an invention and you *did* build it, out of singular mathematical primitives instantiated as specific constructs of physical information directives, also known as software codes. That is why algorithms should be patentable -- NOT merely copyrightable.

To make an analogy with copyright, let's put it like this: letters representing specific sounds are our common property. Arbitrary strings of those letters -- commonly known as words -- are generally considered the common property of all of us -- but not *necessarily*: thus the rise of trademarks (which *may*, like the now-common concept 'xerox' as a synonym for "copy" pass into the common language. Note /.'s notation at the bottom of this list: "Trademarks property of their respective owners."). Arbitrary conjunctions of those strings are considered copyrightable, and, since 1976 [in U.S. law, at least], are considered "instantly" copyrighted by their creator upon formation -- thus /.'s notation at the bottom of this list: "Comments owned by the poster". However, there is nothing to stop people from designating their personal "creative expression" as 'in the public domain': free for unlimited use by other humans, with neither reference nor payment to the original creator.

Now let's look at software patents: original methods which *do* things to information *utilizing* information in the form of software codes. Parent makes the salient point: Mathematics is the birthright of every human. I would state it as "mathematical operations are our common property". Operations *do* things: mapping one thing to another, or transforming one thing into another. Arbitrary strings of those operations -- commonly known as functions -- are generally considered the common property of all of us. (Example: the Newton-Raphson method to find the zeros of an arbitrary equation.) Functions *do* things, using information to operate on information. A "mathematical operation" can be represented as a single software code: say, 0x40 == "add" ; arbitrary combinations of *those* operations -- software functions -- *could be* considered the common property of all of us -- but not *necessarily*: consider the JPEG and MPEG algorithms (proprietary). [But see here for the furor surrounding patent issues about JPEG.] Arbitrary conjunctions of those functions *could* be considered eligible for software patenting, if their operations *do* "non-obvious things. (However, there is nothing to stop people from designating their personal "methodical expressions of operations" as 'in the public domain': free for unlimited use by other humans, with neither reference nor payment to the original creator (think *some forms of* 'open source software').)

The essential difference between copyrightable property and patentable property is that patents cover methods which *do* things; copyrights cover expressions which *say* things. Methods which merely attempt to cover the transformation of codes from one form to another (say, a patent which covers ASCII-to-UNICODE: too obvious) or are clearly invalidated by prior art (like JPEG eventually was) are not eligible for patent coverage. But what if someone applied for a patent which, as one of its methods, asserted the solution to an as-yet unproved mathematical question, such as the zeroes of the Zeta function, as necessary to the legitimacy of the patent -- AND included the proof. Since mathematicians have been trying for decades to solve that problem -- its solution is non-obvious -- *that* would certainly be considered an invention, would it not? The $64,000 question is: where do we set the bar for "non-obvious"?

I think that this is where Parent goes astray: asserting that mathematics as our common heritage mistakenly implies the *unpatentability* of anything based on mathematics. As I have elucidated above, extending his analogy to "creative expression" -- substituting semantics for mathematics -- would invalidate the meaningfulness of copyright as well -- a right long established in common law, reflecting the right of creators to a monopoly over their own work. But surely Parent would agree that mathematics *does* things; otherwise, it would have no utility. Therefore, it seems that software patents have a right -- indeed, a necessity -- to exist; the only question is where does software stop being obvious and start being non-obvious?

Stalin never outlawed typewriters. No idea where you've got that from.

Perhaps here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samizdat.

The term was coined as a pun by Russian poet Nikolai Glazkov in the 1940s, who typed copies of his poems indicating Samsebyaizdat (, “Myself by Myself Publishers”) on the front page. Before glasnost, the practice was dangerous, because copy machines, printing presses, and even typewriters in offices were under control of the First Departments (KGB outposts): reference printouts for all of them were stored for identification purposes.

22. The system of claim 19, the actions of the analysis module further comprising: identifying a plurality of object names having the highest probabilities of having a visual representation within a first visual content item in the visual content repository; and revising a list of labels within metadata associated with the first visual content item, based at least in part on the identified plurality of object names.

Especially United States Patent 8250019 (System and method for interactive knowledge visualization) claim 9:

9. A method for interactive knowledge visualization, comprising: receiving, at a knowledge visualization server, a request for one or more visualizations; retrieving data associated with the one or more visualizations from one or more databases; converting the data associated with the one or more visualizations into visualization data,...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_class#Places_of_high_Creative_Class_populations:

In Cities and the Creative Class, Florida devotes several chapters to discussion of the three main prerequisites of creative cities (though there are many additional qualities which distinguish creative magnets). For a city to attract the Creative Class, he argues, it must possess "the three 'T's": Talent (a highly talented/educated/skilled population), Tolerance (a diverse community, which has a 'live and let live' ethos), and Technology (the technological infrastructure necessary to fuel an entrepreneurial culture).

I would add that the increased possibility of serendipitous interactivity with other Creatives in an urban environment may be one of the underlying factors that leads to the selection of certain cities and not others.

"Make me a general-purpose computer that runs all programs except for one program that freaks me out."

Isn't this just another version of the halting problem, with mathematics replaced by politics?

But hey, now you can accuse anyone you disagree with online of being a 'KGB bot'!

That sounds like something a KGB bot would say!

Great -- a new twist on Godwin's Law.

"He is not God of the dead, but of the living." (nudge, nudge, wink, wink --say, know more?)

It's probable that, hand-in-hand with life extension, will come the ability to tune age to anywhere on the adult spectrum. "Old" age would come to seem only a charming oxymoron. (Due to the massive pruning of neurons occurring at the end of adolescence, one could probably not 'back up' past about 25 or so.) If that's the case, my guess is that most people will settle at somewhere in their 30's -- the combined peak of mental and physical fitness. Given that, most people would then have no problem living indefinitely. The settlement of the universe would then become an interesting lark, as a thousand years, combined with the relativistic effects of near-lightspeed travel, would seem to take no more than a decade would take now. (tip of my hat to Joe Haldeman).

People kind of forget about him, but I don't know why. He was constantly being nominated for Hugos and Nebulas. I read Niven and Pournelle's Inferno long before I read Dante Aligheri's Divine Comedy trilogy -- but it compares quite favorably in retrospect.

I can't believe that no one mentioned Science Fiction Hall of Fame: The Greatest Science Fiction Stories of All Time ! Chosen by the members of the Science Fiction Writers of America and published in 1970: stories were from 1929-1964. No ISBN in my (tattered) copy, but Library of Congress Card Number 70-97691. Edit: Oh wait: look here: http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Science_Fiction_Hall_of_Fame_Volume.html?id=yPVbDv5DqkoC. 52 of 58 people rated it 4 or 5. You can then buy it right over in the left-hand column. Go, go!