Category: Uncategorized

The following comes from a post on ObjectivismOnline. For more, see the original thread.

The protection of intellectual property requires the ability to create and apply an objective standard. Attempting to enforce intellectual property rights without the existence of an objective criteria or the ability to apply it violates real property rights, regardless of the potential benefits. Furthermore, the existence of patents must be evaluated in a cost-benefit analysis, at least if the purpose of patents is to provide a benefit to the inventor.

There are some costs common to all patents, including software patents, such as the cost of filling and protecting them, the need for patent portfolios to protect oneself against competitors patent portfolios, the disincentive to inventors and investors of violating existing but unknown patents, and the associated research costs, and the mis-incentives created by directing research into patentable areas versus non-patentable ones.

Continue reading “Against Software Patents”

My new phone. It speaks digital and analog, comes with a camera with zoom and flash, internal and external displays, speakerphone, and voice recognition for complete voice control. It weights 116g, has a talk time of 3 hours and a standby time of 150 hours. Its two-year-old ancestor seems like a dinosaur by comparison.
Since getting wireless, I’ve abandoned my wired phone company, switching to cable for data and video and cellular for calling. While the development of desktop computers has stagnated in the last four years, the massive integration of formerly disparate functions onto a single chipset combined with massive consumer demand has made rapid progress in cellular technology possible. Unfortunately, North America is still way behind Japan and Europe, where phone networks have embraced the Internet and support features such as video chat, GPS navigation, and digital wallets.

After 1&1 permanently nixed my online art gallery without any means of restoring it, I finally re-created it by re-uploading the originals, because my backup is hopelessly out of date. The new gallery needs a lot of work to restore the lost grandeur, so I am looking for volunteers to help me add the relevant hyperlinks and descriptions. There are over 1800 images to manage, so I could use all the help I can get. Just contact me if you’re interested.

I’ve updated my New York City vacation photos after processing them with Picasa. What do you think?

Want to see computers, refrigerators, boats and car parts being shredded into tiny bits? Check out the product demos of SSI.

The following comes from a recent philosophy assignment. My task was to “discuss the meaning of each of the following five concepts: bad, wicked, evil, vicious, and immoral in the context of negative moral judgment.”

In the course of living in society, it is necessary to interact with many different individuals, each with a different philosophy and consequent moral code. In order to be successful in dealing with a variety of different people, it is necessary to exercise careful moral judgment to evaluate the potential value or dis-value each individual offers. In most cases, only a basic evaluation is necessary because the interaction is of a limited and predefined nature, such with a clerk in a store, a newspaper article, or a casual acquaintance. In other cases, it is important to make a careful moral judgment of a person as a whole, such as with a business partner, a close friend, a potential spouse, or a philosopher one admires and aims to emulate.
Continue reading “Evil and moral judgment”

Story on the evening news: “de-policing” is a popular response to allegations of racial profiling. Cops are stopping fewer minorities in order to avoid creating statistical patterns that might implicate them or their departments in racial profiling.

Is anyone really surprised by this?

I was disappointed to see that Picassa doesn’t support subfolders – all folders are shown as a long list. But guess what, here is an undocumented trick direct from a Google employee: the “My Pictures/Picassa” folder is special. Any folders placed inside it will display in a hierarchy. Voila!”

Need a 1GB online drive? Get this shell extension for Gmail.

I was reading an article on Firefox, when I saw an ad for a “free download.” The ad took me a prompt for a $37.95 “subscription” and a $10 “desktop pack.” For the gullible, Firefox can be obtained for free here.

Update: Wondering who actually funds Firefox development? Click.