No, PayPal was founded as Fieldlink in December 1998 by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel and Luke Nose, before being renamed Cofinity. They originally made security software for hand-held devices. The PayPal service was launched in 1999. Cofinity merged with X.com in March 2000, taking out a competitor.

In reality, ALL influence matters when talking about a thirteen-year old child taking a human life. But I kinda doubt it was the potential vegan inside that drove that.

The victim was 13. The perpetrator is 64 now, so he was 20 or 21 at the time. This was an adult who had sex with and murdered a 13-year-old child. Why do you keep repeating that the murderer was 13 when even the summary gives you enough information to know this isn't true?

I'm surprised the USA has last as long as it has with a significant proportion of the population apparently being this stupid.

You scan the vendor's QR code on your phone, and then confirm the purchase in the app. This will send a notification that the vendor can view on their phone. The speaker just uses text-to-speech to give an immediate audible notification so the vendor doesn't have to look at their phone.

Xen is Linux-based.

I have JBL 4408 monitors and a Yamaha amp in my family living room. Pretty much anyone can tell it sounds better than the typical compact speakers that tend to be used in home entertainment systems these days.

vi/nvi/vim have used the cursor keys to move the cursor for decades now. I find nano/pico annoying. vim gets the job done, locally and over ssh connections.

IIRC one of the first smartphone apps to do this the iPhone game Aurora Feint (a Puzzle de Pon clone). It would upload your address book to the developer's server to try to match you with people in your contacts list who also had the game. It was pretty scummy, and it wouldn't tell you that it was uploading all the details.

I do know how the system works. The proposed solution doesn't help. Even if you just say that a product utilising the patent has to be marketed within a year, it stacks the system against people who aren't already in manufacturing and don't have the capital to enter the business. Why would anyone license the patent if they can just wait a year and get it for free? It turns it into a game of chicken, where unless the patent is completely revolutionary, the best thing to do is for manufacturers to wait out the year on smaller players' patents.

The system is broken, but requiring the patent holder to put a product on the market is not the fix, as it disincentivises running a pure research operation.

Right now, you can run a research organisation to develop and prototype a technology, then license it to manufacturers and get payback on the research over the next twenty years, and use that to fund development of more technology.

If you require the patent holder to put a product on the market themselves, you make life harder. It's only worthwhile to publish patents if your organisation is also in the business of manufacturing and selling related products, or if you think you can sell the patent to someone who is within months. A time limit really doesn't help, as the clock ticks down on a patent you aren't making money from anyway.

There are too many patents granted for abstract ideas. Patents are only supposed to be granted for implementations. Protection against "submarine patents" should be legislated, as should FRAND licensing for patents required to implement standards. And then there's the whole issue of companies that are big enough thinking they can just ignore the little guys' patents while trying to enforce their own stupid patents on obvious ideas....

I thought there was some technicality that meant that the abolition of the death penalty didn't apply to treason. Back in 2001 when Australian man David Hicks was captured apparently fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan, there were plenty of Australians calling for him to be charged with treason so he could face the death penalty. I guess they were all misinformed?

And just a few years ago, Chinese agencies compromised a CIA communication systems and obtained a list of spies working for the US. They were all arrested and imprisoned and executed. I don't know if you can call it "murder" when high treason is the one crime that still carries a death penalty even in countries like Australia that are mostly opposed to capital punishment.

You realise it's an in-universe description for Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, right?

People like to laugh at how ridiculous his predictions are.

not if they don't want to work in a shithole country

FTFY