You know the same thing could have been (and was) said about the switch from an analog phone system to digital. Every phone, every piece of switching equipment, every repairman's kit had to change -- all at enormous expense. It paid for itself though, by increasing profits (companies could charge for the new services that were made possible). All it would take is for some upstart startup to begin hooking up DC power in some new neighborhoods to get the game going. I don't even know if that would be legal now in most places though. The entrenched power monopolies would be a big obstacle to overcome.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FBussard_ramjet

So it's true...all the nerds really have abandoned Slashdot. We now have a place where the parent comment, which a high-school algebra student should recognize as foolish, gets modded "Insightful". I think I've finally had enough of this place.

So where do the cool kids hang out now? Oh my god, look who I'm asking!

For the record: x^2 is quadratic, x^3 cubic, x^4 quartic, etc., c^x is expontential

> The toy was one of the most costly toys of the time, retailing at $50 — equivalent to around $400 today.

Off topic, but I can't let it pass. Sorry.

Calculated based on published US government CPI figures, $50 in 1951 was the equivalent of $466 in 2014 (latest figures published). If you are paying the slightest attention, however, you know gov. CPI figures are crap. I know, for example that the house my parents bought in 1954 cost them under $7000. The same house today would cost over $250K (in a not especially hot market)

There's a guy making a living out of providing accurate figures to businesses who need better data that the US government is willing to provide. Using his CPI figures (from shadowstats.com) is eye-opening. That atomic energy lab would be selling for over $2000 today. No wonder I didn't get one!

They might believe that regardless of how much they pay for the spectrum. Or they might not believe it but still act like they do. Both of which are irrelevant, because as long as there are rules, enforcement will be necessary, so just be prepared to enforce them and to hell with companies who are claiming they bought more than they paid for..

Not much sympathy for either party from me, as I'm sure both companies understood the nature of the contract. I wonder, though, how much it has cost Apple in sales and good will to be putting out a product without the top-of-the-line screen. Probably a lot more than they were trying to squeeze out of this deal with their ruthless negotiating tactics. This is the sort of thing Stephen Covey (7 Habits of Highly Effective People) was going on about when he advocated seeking out the win-win deal. If your partners don't prosper, it will always come back to hurt you.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3F...

I should note that the above argument is about "patent trolls" in general. I don't know the particulars about Intellectual Ventures.

I know patent trolls are about as popular here as child molesters, but here I am, coming to their defense..,

Suppose you are the inventor of something marvelous, like say, intermittent windshield wipers. You are not likely to have the capital to start your own car company, so how do you monetize your invention? You do the obvious: approach the existing car companies about licensing. Now, if you don't happen to know the story of Rober Kearns, you may want to look him up, but the TL;DR version is that if you are not ready to spend years and $MILLIONS in court, the giants will just steam roll right over you, taking your invention with them.

Enter the "patent troll".

Patent trolls are your key to monetizing your invention. They have the expertise and the money to see a court case through. They are not producers themselves so the multi-nationals can't shut them down using their own patent portfolios. If the patent is a good one, they stand a real chance of winning in court and they compete against each other for such opportunities, so they form an alternative market where your invention can fetch you a tidy sum. They will expect a discount obviously; they assume a substantial risk, after all, due to the uncertain nature of litigation.

The facts that patent trolls don't invent anything and don't make anything are often held up here on Slashdot as reasons to deride these companies. These are red herrings. Many companies exist which perform valuable functions in society without doing either of these things. Patent trolls are among them.

I will grant that there have been some absurd patent cases ltigated by patent trolls, but that's a separate issue. If anybody's reputation should suffer for these absurdities, it should be the patent office's. The troll is just doing its duty by its investors to run a profitable company by obtaining maximum value for its patent assests.

.. now that they recognize the obvious threat represented by videos such as this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAknnmy_i9k

The parent comment is an obvious troll... but the question at the link is a good one. It asks:

I'd like to know if RMS has any further comments on this. I.e., has there been any progress on finding other ways to prevent non-free software from being combined with gcc code, so that offering such dynamic libraries would be possible? If the GPL is not considered sufficient protection, would a stricter license be an option? What avenues are being explored?

The nineties called; they want their argument back (they're probably looking to get this put-down back too).

What we've seen in the last decade and more is that regulation of the digital realm is absolutely possible (think "Great Firewall of China") and can shut down or marginalize targeted activities quite effectively. Not perfectly, mind you, but law enforcement has never been perfect in the analog world either.

Time to update our thinking.

Yes, Linus has played an important role in the ascendency of Linux over FreeBSD, but I think the GPL ought to get even more credit. Stallman is and always has been right about the BSD license. Apple is just one of many companies who have shown how easily a thriving BSD software project can essentially be taken private. Just take your wad of cash and buy out the core developers. Set them to work on your proprietary, extended version with all the security bug fixes, the slick new UI and the closed-source installer. Then get your SEO guys going and soon Google won't even be able to find the so-called "free" version. In three years, anybody who can find the BSD licensed version won't dare to use it anyway because it's so far out of date. RIP "free" version.

Culture, by definition, is not genetically transmitted. Behavior is influenced by both culture and genetics and teasing out which cause has what effect is a very, very tricky business. Merely observing a correlation between race and food stamp use is likely to get you labelled a racist because only a racist (or an ignoramus) would find it at all interesting. Carefully conducted research on the subject has demonstrated much better correlation with family income than with race for a host of societal ills that are typically ascribed to race in the USA.

Pot, meet Kettle.