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Congressman boasts on Twitter about the money he got to support CISPA, then thinks better of it | 188 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Congressman boasts on Twitter about the money he got to support CISPA, then thinks better of it
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, March 24 2013 @ 01:37 PM EDT
CISPA is a bill before Congress that will radically increase the ease with which the government and police can spy on people without any particular suspicion. It is being rammed through by people like Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), who received a small fortune in funding from the companies that stand to get rich building the surveillance tech CISPA will make possible.

What's more, Rogers admits it, and even tweets about it! Nicko Margolies from the Sunlight Foundation writes,

Congr essman boasts on Twitter about the money he got to support CISPA, then thinks better of it

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Post: "Good Google", Who Will Defend The Open Web?
Authored by: SilverWave on Sunday, March 24 2013 @ 01:48 PM EDT
Post: "Good Google", Who Will Defend The Open Web?
In a recent discussion on Hacker News, user andyl made the following comment:

“Before Google+ came along, Google had many great products and embraced the OpenWeb. Now Google has abandoned Open Standards like RSS and CalDAV, and I think Google is more interested in building their own walled garden.”

My first thought was: “Bingo, you nailed it.”

My second, third and subsequent thoughts were something like this:

This is a *very* unfortunate development, as Google were uniquely positioned to be great defenders of the Open Web, and - for quite some time - seemed to *be* defenders of the Open Web. Now, one has to ask: Who will defend the Open Web, post “Good Google?”

---
RMS: The 4 Freedoms
0 run the program for any purpose
1 study the source code and change it
2 make copies and distribute them
3 publish modified versions

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Draft on Conditions for Patentability under Section 101
Authored by: macliam on Sunday, March 24 2013 @ 02:55 PM EDT

Over the past few days, I have been working on a document concerning the statutory conditions for patentability under Section 101, in the light of the Supreme Courts opinions in Funk Bros, Benson, Flook, Diehr, Bilski and Mayo. It has growed like Topsy.

Once I have posted this, and waited the necessary 60 seconds, I plan to attach the current draft as a comment to this one. The document is already long!

The current section headings are as follows.

The Nature of Abstract Ideas

Abstract Ideas in Mathematics

Mathematical Ideas, Algorithms and Discoveries

Preemption

Routine Applications of Laws of Nature and Abstract Ideas

Patentability of Computer-Assisted Inventions

Machines and Manufactures

The first section delves into philosophy, specifically the writings of the empiricist philosophers Locke, Berkeley and Hume. I am not a philosopher, and I am not well-acquainted with their works. My purpose in putting this section together is to refute the notion that “nobody can explain what an abstract idea is”. If philosophers cannot agree on what abstract ideas are in themselves, or whether or not they actually exist, nevertheless I suggest that they do agree on the subject-matter of their disagreements. Thus their writings should provide evidence as to what could or could not be considered an abstract idea that has a chance of standing up in a court of law.

I then discuss ideas in mathematics, and in particular ideas within mathematics that are specifically called abstract.

I then turn to legal argument, attempting to survey the law. I have aimed for the style of a legal brief, but I have never written such documents before. I think I have worked out how to construct case citations, but, given that this is my first attempt at anything like a legal brief, do not rely on them! The discussion centres on preemption, and on obvious applications of laws of nature, natural phenomena and abstract ideas.

I return to abstract ideas in the sense of Locke in my final short section.

There is more that I planned to write, and maybe will write, but I am getting exhausted, and therefore plan to attach here a document that might be a draft for a section of some future document.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Placebo effect patented ..
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, March 24 2013 @ 03:26 PM EDT
"SPCD is a cascading (multi-phase) protocol design. In the canonical two-phase version, you start with a larger-than-usual group of placebo subjects relative to non-placebo subjects. In phase one, you run the trial as usual, but at the end, placebo non-responders are randomized into a second phase of the study (which, like the first phase, uses a placebo control arm and a study arm). SPCD differs from the usual "placebo run-in" design in that it doesn't actually eliminate placebo responders from the overall study."

"What's even more repugnant, however, is that Fava's group didn't stop with a mere paper in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics. They went on to apply for, and obtain, U.S. patents on SPCD (on behalf of The General Hospital Corporation of Boston). The relevant U.S. patent numbers are 7,647,235; 7,840,419; 7,983,936; 8,145,504; 8,145,505, and 8,219,41, the most recent of which was granted July 2012. You can look them up on Google Patents." link

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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