Well, not in the usual sense of following an invisible man in the sky. However, they do have a strong civic religion based on the manufactured myth of the Dear Leader (who, now being dead, is sort of a 'invisible man in the sky'), so FAIL1.

and doesn't support terrorist organizations.

Considering its endless hysterical posturing toward South Korea which has been ongoing for 50 years, along with various strange little attacks over the past 5 decades, I'd say that North Korea *is* a terrorist organization (albeit a rather pitiful and impotent one), so FAIL2.

Any other half-ass propaganda you'd care to pass along, Mr. Anonymous Coward?

Funny, that's exactly the way the Moral Majority took over the Republican Party in the 1980s. How come the Republicans keep getting taken over by right-wingers every 30 years, yet the Democrats don't get taken over by the lefties, and keep creeping to the right?

I call shotgun on the app! Have it say not "Yeah..." but "Mmmm...." and "Huh." You are then not "agreeing" [to anything], but just "thinking" and "considering".

You just reinvented the crowd-wisdom blacklist.

This solution actually has scientific backing. Research has shown that third party punishment to reinforce social norms actually works. In fact, dishonesty invites costly third party punishment in the real world. The OP's solution will in fact put the onus on the telephone company to solve the problem -- at the source, where it *should* be solved -- as it will remove the incentive for *not* solving it. Hey AC, go ahead and submit this to the FCC -- it's ultimately the simplest and best solution!

I'd rather have the picture. When I look at you I just see a narcissist.

I happened to catch the original showing. An entrepreneur was marketing an app he had acquired the rights to that sequestered calls from certain numbers. The original app was authored by "a policeman" who used it to get calls from informers. The new owner -- Neal Desai -- tried to get buy-in from the Sharks so he could market it as a "cheater's app". One of the Sharks said she was more interested in it as a privacy app. Neal ended up getting buy-in from two other investors for $200,000! Now there's a flip!

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

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

And what is more random than free will?

Best. Band. Name. Ever.

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?