No capitalism doesn't work FOR humanity's best interests, however that doesn't mean their work doesn't further the advances of humanity.

Thinking of some of the greatest inventions of last century, the light-bulb or automobile. Both were made by great inventors, both drastically changed the world, both were made with profits in mind, and both had patents on their inventions.

Anyone who thinks that its wrong to make money for advanced research should get a clue on how the world works.
The same can be said for anyone who instantly assumes that all patents should be worthless.

Watching videos on your cellphone?
We get charged by the kilobytes for online cellphone useage here in New Zealand, watching a 30 minutes youtube movie would probably cost at least 50USD
If your annoyed that you can't download movies to your cellphone, i can't help but think your doing something wrong.
Flash pages on the otherhand i can understand, especially since there are so many websites that don't function correctly without flash

Everything has its limits
The reason microsoft and windows have been so successful has been because their software has been so friendly to use.
Its so easy it attracts developers, that make applications for the platform, which attracts end-users, some of which go on to become developers.

Its a self-feeding cycle, which is why microsoft has been so successful, and its also where linux is starting to show real growths.

Now your saying MS can give its customers anything it wants and they'll eat it. You might be right, but only in the short term. Longer term, a small amount, lets say that in frustration/annoyance 5% less developers drop windows vista, and start using using linux instead.
They go on to develop apps that DON"T work on windows but instead on linux, these apps appeal to other users who go on to get linux instead, and the linux cycle grows.

Those few developers, taht tiny market share, is all it can take to crush the windows monopoly. And without the monopoly, or ease of use, why would you pay money over a linux distribution which is free.

No microsoft can't afford to stuff up windows, its the cornerstone of all their software, everything is dependant on it, it just takes time (read: years) before screwups play out fully.

Heres a small post showing that MS's vista screwup has cost them dearly, the Mac's web presence nearly doubling from 4 to 8%.
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/business/appleaday/blog/2008/06/macs_web_footprint_growing_at.html

It'd be simlar with linux.
Just wait a few years, and the results will play themselves out.
Don't even get me started on the fact that the netbook market is cut-throat pricing wise, MS are already having a hard time jusifying the cost of windows (to the point where they cut prices on windows oem to stop being excluded from that market)

HD's can cover about 20g while in use. So as long as there are no sudden jerks, its fine for even mobile use.
When the drive heads are parked, its about 200-300g. Which is enough for small falls, and large jerks.

For all the talk about HD's being protected, its actually the casing and the motherboard that stands to benefit. Hell, newer laptops have the HD bay easily accessible for HD replacement.
But if the case is damaged, then the whole thing needs to be repaired. A laptop with a a damaged power socket, or broken wifi antenna/wire isn't easily fixable.

All i need from a desk is for it to be the right high and have enough space, for my LCD to be clear and large, and my keyboards to be solid.
That's not much in the way of ergonomics however, its just my workspace requirements.

Its a different matter when looking at my mouse, which is 5 buttoned + 2 axis scrolling wheel, and contoured to my right hand, with all buttons accessible with minimal effort.

I'd also say my chair is something important, but its something i take for granted. Anything padded would work for me.

Back to the point.
I visit various client's computers frequently, and the thing i miss the most when working on them, is my mouse. Theirs just feels different... wrong.
Which is why i appreciate my mouse when i return to it. It feels right and all the buttons are where i expect them to be.

First up, some citation is needed. I couldn't find a single trace of a lawsuit coming about from burp-tanks.
The story just sounds like some fictional feel good story passed around to cheer up people who think they hold a genius idea. Do correct me if you can find a source or citation for this story though.

Secondly you say that he could of made more money by being patient, but i'd argue that is far from true. You never know when someone else is going to come up with an invention that would make your invention either obsolete or just an alternative.

Sooner you go to production, the sooner you can establish a a foothold, and set companies in their ways with your product. By the time a competing idea comes along, hopefully you idea is so ingrained that they just won't bother with the alternatives, at the very least you'll have the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_mover advantage.

As for loosing most his money to lawyers, I'd expect very much that if he did win all his lawsuits, he would of made more then if he had a legal arrangement, at least short-term. Punitive damages are designed to do just that. He should of got what he wanted for his idea AND then if his lawyers were any good, received large punitive damages on top.

As for mending the resulting burnt bridge, I'd say with all that cash you just received you'd be able to purchase some top notch marketing. If your product is worth using, I'd say you'd be able to come to some arrangement rather easily.
If your that scared of burning them, out of court settlements are also great way to come to a mutually beneficial agreement.

Sitting on an idea and letting it rot while you try to make the 'perfect' launch is a great way to fall behind the times or be 2nd to the punch.

You know i'm usually one for freedom of rights and all, but lets get a few things right.

Driving is not a right inherent to all of us, its a privilege.
A privilege given to us by the state, and subject to the conditions they impose, and can both be denied and revoked.
The roads you drive on are not your own, they are the states.

If you want to drive around at 80MPH on your own private backyard watching the tv instead of the wheel, by all means you can. Hell its Darwinism at its finest. But you keep your erratic driving to yourself, and on your own property.

Its well within the powers of your state to ban cars with that functionality from being licensed for road use. Passing a law addressing the issue probably isn't needed, but at the end of the day its just easier for everyone. (Except perhaps people who do drive at 80mph on their own turf)

Your entire post leaves me wondering.

China as a whole seems to keep to itself. It will regulate inself, and any outside interferance. So the idea of china ruling the world could only really happen economically, in which case we won't be a state of china, just a trading partner. (In fact New Zealand already is the first trading partner to china).

So the world being better if china took over is such a pear shaped world, i can't see what could cause it. I'm not happy with how china censors everything inside itself, but its CHINA. I'm not Chinese, nor do i live there. It is not my place to say how they should and shouldn't rule.

Now going back to America, I have no idea what your dribbling on about. You talk about the end of America like they are going to implode because their technology was stolen. America isn't a company where if the blueprints for its next device is leaked, it goes bankrupt.

It does however pay to note that its not far off bankruptcy, due to stupid policies, and some VERY stupid policies. If their government wasn't crooked, and the voters informed, and willing to vote for hard progress, rather then easy debt, i believe we'd see America start to pull ahead.

As it is now, America's greatest failing is they have no concern about where their money comes from. If they did the housing market wouldn't of collapsed, the war wouldn't' of drained their coffers, and hell, even the car industry might be in a leaner shape rather then relying on government handouts to keep the lard well smoothed.

Time will tell how dearly the pay for their actions, i just hope they don't take my country down with them when they do. (Like this world wide recession they created.. thanks!)

bad companies don't make any profit of a second hand laptop.

A good company would sell them support and services, and judging from the summery, at $150 for a smart bay, they are close to doing just that.

Lets not forget that all PC's need to be replaced, if new owner is impressed with your service and quality, he may purchase directly from you in future.

There's also the original owner, if he has trouble on-selling his old PC because of you, he's less likely to purchase newer models from you.

1. Treat your Customers well.
2. ...
3. Profit!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/20/kentucky_domain_name_seizure_upheld/

its bounced back and forth, herels one where an appeal lost because a judge though they did have the power, it later got reversed and the domains re-enabled.

They were successful in disabling the domain, but not permanently. That's "not entirely successful". I believe they'll try it again once they try passing new legislation. thats the "yet" part.

Lets consider a better analogy.

We build at OUR EXPENSE an entire series of roads, spanning both countries and continents, and we tie the traffic system into YOUR control system.

We REIMBURSE you for your troubles, paying you a small fee for each traffic light you operate (DNS Registration), resulting in cheaper operational costs for everyone.

We however have grown concerned over your ability to operate our traffic as a neutral controller, as some of your states believe they can hijack and disable our traffic lights, if it bothers their locals. They have not been entirely successful yet, but they have caused disruptions that should never of been possible in the first place.

http://blog.cdt.org/2009/01/24/kentucky-court-rules-that-domain-names-arent-craps-tables/

The options we have available to us to minimize US laws/regulations on both our local and international traffic, we have the following options:

1. We leave the system in your hands (and whim), and hope for the best.
2. You hand over the control to an multinational committee
3. We sever our dependence on your system, and create our own. This however will more then likely cause international traffic crashes.

Anyone who thinks that its America's right to retain control over the entire INTERNATIONAL internet will suffer when countries develop their own control system in disgust.

Anyone who thinks America is more reliable then a committee might have a point, but 'because were better then you', is never going to be an accepted reason.

Very.

A good coder should write clean code that is easy to understand.

But when the variable's names are written with meanings you can't understand, and comments (or worse, none) in another language, you might as well be reading assembly.

They wouldn't have cared the slightest about that. The only reason they will have done this will be because of money. Plain and simple.

Now perhaps they have realised that their DRM efforts are repelling people from buying their games. I know i refused to purchase RA3 the moment i heard it had super restrictive DRM put on it

It could also be a ploy to get cheaper licensing deals with the makers of securerom.

Or perhaps its just an experiment to see what less DRM does to sales.

If you purchased the game and got it cracked later, they already got your money and couldn't care less. It is after all EA, they aren't exactly known for having customer satisfaction as a priority

A few thoughts here.

The GPL doesn't force you to distribute your source code unless you've distributed a derived work (ie: binary executable).

In other words when you distribute anything based on the GPL, you distribute ALL of your work, holding nothing back.

Its still your right to not distribute anything

To give a further example.
If I've built some killer utility application, and I decide I want to licence it under the GPL I can.

A friend comes to be, lets call him Adam, and he asks for the software, since he's a friend I give it to him. I can even SELL the distribution to him.

Its now his copy to use and redistribute as he likes, under the restrictions of the GPL. (He can even redistribute it for free or for more if he likes)

Later tosspot Bob comes along from a competitor's company and decides he needs it, and asks for it. I can refuse to distribute to him.
He can ask my friend Adam, and Adam can choose to distribute or not.

In this case, since no one has distributed to Bob, he has no recourse for acquiring the source code or even derived works. He can't demand it from either of us since we never distributed to him in the first place.

If he steals the code/binaries from Bob its copyright infringement, as he was never given a licence to use the software from anyone.

Now if you understand that you only need to supply source code to those you've distributed to, the fact that you can be restricted from distributing to places and people has little effect on the integrity of the GPL.

If you can't release source code to Cuba, you can't release anything to Cuba, the GPL forbids it. But that does not invalidate or contradict the licence in any form or way.

Probably the biggest misconception with the GPL is that people think once its licensed under the GPL you have no control over who you distribute it to. That's just not the case, you can distribute nothing, or everything. There is no in-between however.