There's nothing insane about that. The source code and binaries for a program are protected for 130 years. No one cares. Anyone can write a program that does the same thing... But only in a system without software patents!
Speaking as a computer scientist, patents on software are madness. You're patenting math. Software patents are an abomination and don't "protect" anyone from anything.
Okay, then why does Social Security suck? Why does the IRS suck? Why are our roads awful and our bridges falling apart (DoT)? Why does the TSA still exist? etc, etc, etc...
Because for every informed individual who realizes how mismanaged and/or incompetent these organizations are, there are five or ten who support them "Because we need them!" Well, except maybe the IRS. I can't explain that one.
And I'm not sure the "minority" card works for Medicare and Social Security--the elderly are probably the most active voting bloc in the US.
There was a Supreme Court case over this: the "individual mandate". You are subject to a penalty if you do not purchase insurance. No one, even the bill's most ardent supporters, denies this.
If it is run by the government and it works poorly, as a citizen of a republic, I can vote out the decision makers and get things changed.
Then why does Medicare/Medicaid still suck?
I agree with the principle on a local level: The utility company in my home town is run by the local government. If it does a bad job, the city council and president will pay the price. It really doesn't work like that on the Federal level, however...
If it is run by corporations and works poorly... I'm screwed, because I have zero power to change things unless I'm an influential stakeholder, in which case I'm (practically by definition) wealthy enough to afford health care that actually works well.
This is an artifact of a lack of competition, not corporate control. In a healthy market, if your insurer sucked you could go elsewhere. But the insurance market (much like the wireless telecomm and internet markets) is completely broken, due to too much of the wrong kind of regulation and not enough of the right kind of regulation. Leaving us with a small pool of huge, entrenched providers who can capture the regulatory mechanisms put in place to keep them honest...
Going to a SINGLE provider across the entire country would just exacerbate the problem. What incentive is there to improve services when your "customers" have nowhere else to go by law? What reason is there to cut costs when your funding is the government's magic money printer?
The real solution to all this would be taking steps to encourage competition in the marketplace, including competition from non-profit providers (my car insurance, for instance, is a non-profit co-op). That would provide a natural incentive to cut costs and improve services. Germany has a model like this, as far as I understand, and it seems to work pretty well.
Yeah, it seems common. The junk mail, though, was just icing on the cake. It was really the software patents bit that sent me through the roof. I was paying dues to a professional organization who was working to make it more difficult if not impossible for me to earn a living.
My company gave me a free membership to the IEEE. I ended up cancelling it after the first year, because:
1) They are die-hard supporters of software patents.
2) The amount of snail mail spam I got every month from them was amazing. Over half of my junk mail was because I was an IEEE member and they wanted to sell me car insurance or something.
So seeing an IEEE article about how unfair it is for someone to make money off of the labor of others, and then know they support patent trolling and filling my mailbox with junk mail... Yeah, the facepalm quotient made me finally register for a TechDirt account to comment on it.
On the post: Nobel Prize Winning Economist Eric Maskin: In Highly Innovative Industries, It May Be Better To Scrap Patents
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Software is the only thing currently protected by copyright AND patents in the US.
On the post: Nobel Prize Winning Economist Eric Maskin: In Highly Innovative Industries, It May Be Better To Scrap Patents
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On the post: Nobel Prize Winning Economist Eric Maskin: In Highly Innovative Industries, It May Be Better To Scrap Patents
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On the post: Amanda Palmer Unleashes The Voice Of The People About Health Insurance Via Twitter
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Because for every informed individual who realizes how mismanaged and/or incompetent these organizations are, there are five or ten who support them "Because we need them!" Well, except maybe the IRS. I can't explain that one.
And I'm not sure the "minority" card works for Medicare and Social Security--the elderly are probably the most active voting bloc in the US.
On the post: Amanda Palmer Unleashes The Voice Of The People About Health Insurance Via Twitter
Re: Re:
On the post: Amanda Palmer Unleashes The Voice Of The People About Health Insurance Via Twitter
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Then why does Medicare/Medicaid still suck?
I agree with the principle on a local level: The utility company in my home town is run by the local government. If it does a bad job, the city council and president will pay the price. It really doesn't work like that on the Federal level, however...
If it is run by corporations and works poorly... I'm screwed, because I have zero power to change things unless I'm an influential stakeholder, in which case I'm (practically by definition) wealthy enough to afford health care that actually works well.
This is an artifact of a lack of competition, not corporate control. In a healthy market, if your insurer sucked you could go elsewhere. But the insurance market (much like the wireless telecomm and internet markets) is completely broken, due to too much of the wrong kind of regulation and not enough of the right kind of regulation. Leaving us with a small pool of huge, entrenched providers who can capture the regulatory mechanisms put in place to keep them honest...
Going to a SINGLE provider across the entire country would just exacerbate the problem. What incentive is there to improve services when your "customers" have nowhere else to go by law? What reason is there to cut costs when your funding is the government's magic money printer?
The real solution to all this would be taking steps to encourage competition in the marketplace, including competition from non-profit providers (my car insurance, for instance, is a non-profit co-op). That would provide a natural incentive to cut costs and improve services. Germany has a model like this, as far as I understand, and it seems to work pretty well.
On the post: Not This Again: IEEE Plays Up Bogus 'Digital Sharecropping' Argument Again
Re: Re: Oh IEEE...
On the post: Not This Again: IEEE Plays Up Bogus 'Digital Sharecropping' Argument Again
Oh IEEE...
1) They are die-hard supporters of software patents.
2) The amount of snail mail spam I got every month from them was amazing. Over half of my junk mail was because I was an IEEE member and they wanted to sell me car insurance or something.
So seeing an IEEE article about how unfair it is for someone to make money off of the labor of others, and then know they support patent trolling and filling my mailbox with junk mail... Yeah, the facepalm quotient made me finally register for a TechDirt account to comment on it.
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