fatdog789's comments

After having tried it, edmodo sucks balls. Huge, bloody, salty, donkey balls.

I guess being first mover/original isn't the best thing.

Stop spamming your lame little startup every time a superior competitor pops up.

It's not just you. Firefox has the Netscape syndrome: it gets crappier with every release. And that's without any damn addons.

I believe that Apple's real contribution to the MP3 field was the massive amounts of money it spent on advertising. Apple spends more per year on advertising than every other electronics company in the world...combined...$500 million+.

Apple doesn't make quality products. It makes quality marketing. And it proved that style trumps substance.

B/c music covers are explicitly covered by licensing laws. Videogame covers are just unimaginative copies (which may also violate copyright laws covering derivative works).

If you want to make a game, make it like the game you are copying, but make it unique. Change the graphics. Add new enemies. But don't make the same game.

A contract signed by a minor is voidable (can be cancelled without penalty) by the minor, but is not void (legally inoperable as if it never existed).

HOWEVER, if a contract is cancelled, both sides must return anything they received the other side party to the contract.

Not entirely true. He could void the contract, but then he'd have to turn over any profits made to the guy he bought the code from (unjust enrichment/quasi-contract).

Just because there isn't a remedy under the contract doesn't mean there isn't a remedy at equity. Usually, the equitable remedy is worse (from the minor's point of view) than the contractual remedy, b/c the equitable remedy is not limited to losses/gains/terms under the contract -- it is limited only by what the court deems is "fair".

It only costs a few hundred thousand dollars to launch a few satellites. Deep space telescopes do cost less than a luxury airliner. (The Dreamliner and Airbus Monsterplane both cost in excess of $250M/per -- and that doesn't include customizations). We have NASA to thank for that -- without a government agency willing to shell out hundreds of billions of dollars on research, this sort of stuff would cost hundreds of millions of dollars per launch.

NASA also isn't the space police. It is the space bureaucracy, and the space experts agency, primarily because the private sector didn't care enough about space to do any of this stuff itself.

NASA exists because of the failure of the private sector.

But prizes are a good idea -- it's more than time for the private sector to get into the game.

People who actually want to learn have been doing it in the library, study hall, or in their own dorm room. You can't learn most of the hard sciences, or even the humanities, from online. You have to do it in a lab, or read the hard copy/visit the site/examine the artifacts.

CS you can learn online. Math you can learn online. Everything else, offline trumps the shit out of online, and it always will.

A netbook is not a tablet pc; it's a mini-laptop. Nowhere does the author refer to a tablet pc. Indeed, he specifically mentions the Dell Mini 9 netbook, which has been on sale for the past year.

I don't think you understand quite how the donor-charity relationship works. The donors are the customers. The charity earns money by pleasing the donors. The venue for pleasing the donors is by performing charitable acts.

If a donor is pissed, it will force the charity to conform to his/her demands. The recipients of the charity's services are usually an afterthought, b/c they are far more easily replaced than any donor.

The difference between a well-run non-profit and a well-run business: the non-profit puts 100% of profits back into its operations, while the business may re-invest the profit or distribute it to its owners.

Most states already require non-profits to operate like businesses; indeed, non-profits are expected to operate better than businesses -- most states require non-profits to maintain levels of capitalization that require devilish efficiency and reuse.

Homeboys Industries, in Los Angeles, which has been very successful in transforming ex-gangbangers and low-income youth into productive members of society.

Legal Aid (anywhere) assists asylum-seekers, wrongfully evicted tenants, and indigents needing legal services.

Microfinancing (non-US operations) in India, China, and the Southeast have done so well that the pioneer of microfinancing received a Nobel.

How do you measure the "results" of a non-profit, when most of them work in non-quantifiable fields?

You end up with the quantity versus quality argument, favoring large, superficial efforts over narrowly tailored, substantive efforts.

Sales do mean that the technology they make is better suited to the actual needs of their clients, especially with re-sales to the same client.

It's sort of why the iCrap consistently dominates the mp3 market, despite the overwhelming lack of features: it is better suited to the simplistic needs of its users.

Actually, all patent trolls can point to some implementation; namely, those who they license the patent to.

More importantly, "some manifestation" still does not address the "use" definitional problem: it a computer simulation sufficient? If the product is purely software, is pseudo-code sufficient manifestation? Is a prototype adequate manifestation? Can a company hire another company to build its prototype to spec (b/c under your definition, they cannot)? Is a subsidiary too divergent from the parent company, such that the research subsidiary cannot ask the manufacturing subsidiary to construct a working prototype? (subsidiaries are separate companies).

Why do we require the inventor to have the capacity to create the invention? Some of the most remarkable breakthroughs of the past century were created by people who didn't have the means to build their own invention. (For example, the inventor of the most efficient oil derricks in use in America during the early 20th century.

The problems that your manifestation requirement impose do nothing to actually fix the problem of patent trolls, and merely impose additional burdens upon inventors, thereby discouraging invention.

For a first-hand discussion of the inventor's dilemma, read/watch Flash of Genius.

Always buy rustproofing, if you bought a car crappy enough that the paint job doesn't include anti-rust elements, especially if you live in a location with lots of water-based weather or near the coast.

Why are you adding money to the lowest price they can sell at? That is your target price -- the lowest price they can sell will always be the lowest price that includes a profit (or the smallest loss, for brands like Chevy). Besides, most of the profit comes from the optional packages, which are marked up 200-500%.

Who gets to define what "use" means, or what acceptable "use" is?

If a company wants to use its patent, but can't arrange financing for manufacturing goods based on the patent, or can't find anyone to manufacture the goods for it, does the company lose its patent?

Is licensing a patent using it? Isn't that what patent trolls already do? If licensing is not considered using a patent, wouldn't that put an incredible dent in biotech research, where most companies license out their discoveries to other companies who actually manufacture the medicines?

Is the loss of patent automatic, or must it be litigated first? If automatic, how does that comport with due process (in the US, in regards to the taking of property rights)? If litigation is required, wouldn't that simply encourage the patentholder's primary competitors to do everything possible to prevent use of the patent? Will notice be required? Will the company be able "redeem" its patent by "using" it within a set grace period after it receives notice that its patent will expire for non-use?

With a proper diet, you wouldn't be eating the burger to begin with...

Atkins is a diet for people who insist on eating the wrong foods. It attempts to minimize the harm of eating crap without actually encouraging the dieter to eat healthy stuff.

A calorie is a calorie is a calorie. Because a calorie is a measurement of the potential energy of a quantity of food.

The type of food is what makes a difference. Fatty foods are worse than the same caloric-quantity of fibrous foods (i.e., fruits and veggies).

And there's plenty of research to suggest that food in - food burned by activity (inc. exercise) - undigestable food = food stored as fat.

The article briefly mentions interval training as one possible way of increasing mitochondrial mass.