Triumvark's comments

The only argument for getting paid in this article is that sweat deserves a return.

That was Marx's labor theory of value. Marx was wrong.

You deserve a return only when you efficiently meet someone else's needs. The secret to economic success is not sweat, but creative sloth.

We measure value against the cost of substitutes, and other people already entertain me for free (without piracy).

Maybe entertainment just isn't a hard problem. Maybe the bottom 99% of entertainers are basically tagging cat pictures. Maybe we shouldn't encourage them.

I guess if you're an app dev, and want to learn one thing from the music industry, I'd find a way to connect with fans and give them a reason to buy: http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/12695

Then look for ways to be creatively lazy, and make sure your app can't be replaced by going for a walk on a spring day.

Can't wait for the sequel: "I Think My Patents Should Never Expire"

This has probably been asked before, but is Bitbucket really unlimited?

If I encrypt my drive, convert it to ASCII, and upload it, will they host it?

I like your simplified model, and I know random strategies are sometimes helpful. My point was that random strategies are not always helpful.

I worry people don't believe this, so let me use a silly outlandish example to prove my point.

Here's a game: Suppose we have a countably infinite number of boxes, all numbered. You pick one to hide under, and I have to find you by looking under boxes which I choose, one at a time. I get to look at as many boxes as I like until I find you or get tired and go home.

Under box 1 is famed astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson, who was spying on you with his (perhaps magical) telescope all morning. He will gladly tell me where you hid.

I now announce my strategy for this game, namely, to pick Box 1 and ask Tyson how to win.

Will you now respond with the original, "From the point of view of game theory, this is not an optimal strategy since it merely invites the opponent to avoid box 1. ..."?

The point of this silly example game is that randomized strategies aren't necessarily helpful for certain classes of games where one strategy gives you disproportionate information about the state of the game.

Guess my number games and battleship games risk being very similar to my extreme illustrative example, but I'll admit I don't know how much.

Bottom line: I just resent the insistence that good game theorists dogmatically REQUIRE randomness in all competitive situations. This is not necessarily the case.

This is a search game. If your opponent constrains himself to a small subset of legal positions to avoid detection, your strategy is working, not failing.

It sounds like Google should be more aggressive with default CSPs.

The phrase "measured on a widely used and scientifically validated personality inventory" jumps out at me. What does that really mean?

Myers-Briggs is 'widely used' and proponents would probably argue it has been 'empirically validated' (by this one study no one can reproduce...). Myers-Briggs still lacks the "retest reliability" necessary for this sort of analysis.

In fact, in most personality tests, you'd expect wild swings in personality without drugs, even by just waiting a day.

Stop right here. Go watch Ben Goldacre on "Bad Science:" http://www.ted.com/talks/ben_goldacre_battling_bad_science.h...

Now, stop giving any attention to campy press release results. I don't even really disagree with the thesis here, but without a full description of the methods, and probably a metanalysis of previous work in this field, the 'canned results' buzzers should be ringing loudly in all of our heads.

This may be fallout from Google flagging a larger network.

A lot of responses are claiming that patents aren't property, or there isn't public use.

35 U.S.C. § 261 claims that "patents shall have the attributes of personal property."

Kelo established the broad reading of 'public use.' Just about any economic intervention could fall under public use, it isn't limited to the government taking permanent ownership.

These are muddy questions debated in legal journals, but if the government is depriving that many people of significant value, then everyone who owns any patents will pitch in to the legal fund. The case is going to be made in its strongest possible terms, and it's something that government would have to seriously worry about.

> I'm not aware of any religion that disallows the use of Facebook.

I suppose the Amish probably aren't interested in Spotify...

> "Yeah, ..."

There's a difference between saying 'no more software patents from now on,' and 'all those we granted before are automatically invalid.'

My take: while the first one is probably ok, the second would raise specific constitutional problems.

It sounds like you feel both issues are best left to the courts, for public policy reasons independent of the 5th Amendment.

Against my better judgment, I should point out that those positions are not really the same, and that you probably don't actually agree with me.

If NPEs are trolls, that implies 'lacking starting capital' is trollish. Small company locked out of an industry? Troll.

Robert Kearns pitched his wiper system to Ford and Chevy, but they preferred to build it without paying him. "NPE = troll" means he was the villain. (He should have, what, kept his invention secret until he built a rival car company?)

There are several other definitions of 'troll.' Lawyers who own patents. Groups who buy patents from others. All of these catch some sheep with the goats. (I'm leaving these as an exercise for the reader.)

It's far more direct to attack patents rather than people. Attack the patents which are obvious or prior art.

As a bonus to this approach, it smacks less of a sort of blind bigotry against the poor, lawyers, or investors. (Even if you do hate one of those groups, attacking the problematic patents directly affords a way of being discrete about it.)

> and to void all existing software patents

The Fifth Amendment states "[No person shall] be deprived of... property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

In other words, this means a lawsuit for every existing software patent to determine its hypothetical value were the law left as is. The Federal Government is suddenly the defendant in millions of civil cases. It will essentially have to buy every software patent out there. The fallout would destroy everything you love and more.

I know it seems like a sad compromise, but there might be huge practical difficulties with that sort of ex post facto rejection of existing patents. Just tell them to stop issuing new software patents, and urge the judiciary to vigorously scrutinize existing software patents which come before the bench for obviousness or prior art.

Trolls? Still?

There are a million definitions for 'patent troll,' and all of them stink, capturing some good activity along with the bad.

The problem is the number of junk patents out there (obvious, prior art, etc.).

India has almost 10 times the population: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+of+india+%2F...

Fair question.

We had a few video stores that really specialized in the long tail. They sat right across the street from Blockbusters or Hollywood Videos. Stuck around a few decades, thrived on the indie image (sorted movies by director, that sort of thing). They made it through BB's reign, and passed away only recently.

But eh, that's my limited experience. I'd welcome more data. Call it a hunch for now, and an open question.

> If you had to pick between DVD and streaming service, and make one of them phenomenally better than what it is now, which one would you pick? DVD, because everyone knows and loves it? Or streaming, because it's growing rapidly? You get to pick one.

Depth of catalog is the most important feature for me. I especially like watching HBO shows without paying tons of money for cable. I also sometimes like watching really obscure films. Films which were released on DVD at one time, but where it may be hard to track down anyone to authorize licensing for streaming.

Which should I pick?

Before Netflix, I satisfied my tastes at the independent video stores around town. Netflix killed those. Naturally, I'm sensitive to any changes that might undermine the DVD service.

The best solution, as I've mentioned before, is to just allow obligatory licensing. Let Netflix convert its entire DVD catalog to streaming. Make it pay a fair statutory fee whenever it streams anything. If a content owner cannot be found, allow the fee to be collected by a designated rightsholder organization (something like ASCAP) until claimed by a verified owner of the content.

> DVDs are on their way out...

Streaming has a unique disadvantage: you have to haggle with each individual content owner.

Yes, it's cheaper to move bits than stuff. Much. But licensing is a pricey hassle. It's a huge part of the comparison, and as content owners get savvy, it will only get more expensive over time.

This should be a signal of how much more right we got the law with physical media. We all want DVDs to be dead, sure. But DVDs would die tomorrow if we just set up an obligatory licensing scheme for this sort of content. If you distribute a movie, Netflix should be allowed to stream it, and pay you a fair statutory fee.

(This isn't some a radical new idea or some Communist scheme, it's basically how radio stations work.)

Until the law is fixed, DVDs will stick around, lingering on.

Fair point, I was too hyperbolic.

I just wanted to emphasize that the 'public posts' metric is not necessarily ideal for a system where "easier private publication" was a showcased feature.