Science and technology, which do produce extra value, are NOT the same thing as the commercial laws. Indeed, excessive centralisation in whatever form, whether it be communist or corporatist not only produces a negative sum game, as this article points out but also works to stifle innovation.
A public corporation is a ficticious legal personna that has the same rights as a real person but not the same responsibilities. This is just a legal invention and as such it could be changed and/or improved upon.
Unpopular as it may be with the wannabe corporation executives here.
This article is a selectively written nonsense, only to be expected from a typical 'sceptic' with a large chip on his shoulder.
For every dismissal he makes, such as 'there is no proof that Mozart used Phi', there is a fact that someone else did, such as Bela Bartok, which the tendentious author always conveniently chooses to ignore.
More to the point, mathematically speaking, his article makes about as much sense as arguing that Pi is just another of an infinity of real numbers, with no more significance than any of them. It is a pointless argument by someone who understands nothing of mathematics beyond an introduction to numbers.
I could quote a number of fascinating special properties of Phi but I will leave it to you, gentle reader, to consult the Fibonacci Quarterly journal and decide for yourself if it is all just nonsense.
Let me rest my case just with one example: continued fractions are an interesting representation for rational/irrational/real numbers, with a number of concrete computational benefits. Phi is unique in having the simplest continued fraction form: [1,1,1......]
You need to fix your links! Nearly every time I click on the next page or something, it says: 'unknown or expired page'. If it needs refreshing, why don't you automatically send a refreshed page when a link is clicked?
This is to be applauded but it needs to go a step further.
What is really needed is for all the academics to agree to retain their own copyright because they, the authors, are the natural holders of it. Worldwide, they ultimately have a much bigger clout than any university.
Under this Princeton proposal, though well meant, one exploiter (the publisher) will just be replaced by another (the institution).
The arrogant wording: 'Staff will grant to The Trustees of Princeton University “a nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide license to exercise any and all copyrights in his or her scholarly articles published in any medium, whether now known or later invented, provided the articles are not sold by the University for a profit, and to authorise others to do the same.” ought to ring the warning bells.
What happens if some staff do not want to do this, for whatever legitimate reasons of their own? Not to mention the innocent little lawyers' trick of adding 'or later invented', thus essentially appropriating their poor members' entire life's work in advance?
Let me repeat the obvious: it is the author who holds the rights. The institution may politely ask for them but it can not unilaterally formulate its own policy to usurp those rights.
John is right, he still cares, and is only trying to help.
The official response he received from the government demonstrates exactly what has become of once great Britain and why Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, was right to recently apply the adjective 'squandering' to the UK education.
Sadly, faced with this attitude, many other professionals who could also be helping, are beyond caring.
It is tempting to hope beyond hope that perhaps it was due to some minute fault in John's presentation of his argument that lead to him being totally stonewalled.
However, his message to the government is perfectly simple and clear: 'you are in charge of the curricculum, so please put programming on it'.
No, unfortunately the only conclusion must be that he got that response precisely because it was intended, and so will anyone else butting in and trying to interfere with a nice monopoly earner deal for MS.
The real answer as to why only buttons on MS software are being taught, and will be taught, could probably be found if we were allowed to be privy to the secret talks that the MS executives hold with the UK government(s) while visiting and bringing a few scraps of cash to the table.
All governments want this but they don't quite dare to do such an unpopular thing quickly and openly, so they are testing it first in some low-visibility countries.
We could go into a long analysis as to why they want it but the short explanation is, as proved again and again by history, that they work for their own interests, not for those of their people.
The author jumps to unwarranted far-reaching conclusions based on one very minimalistic and artificial game. It would be easy to construct another game where people are spontaneously altruistic. Perhaps also yet another game where they adopt both altruistic and punishing strategies but the altruistic one wins. In other words, it all depends on the rules of the game and the author has carefully chosen the rules needed to demonstrate what he wanted to demonstrate in the first place.
There are plenty of real situations where real people are altruistic, as well as situations where they are punishing.
Well, well, well. I am gonna to patent data structures:
"Comprising but not limited to: the said node or nodes, containing one or more information items, equipped with one or more pointers, the said pointers pointing to the said nodes...blah blah blah"
and I will OWN all your asses. Buuaaahahahahaha!
It is ridiculous that after a long rumbling defence of US software patents he offers as a solution learning from various EU countries where IP works. He conveniently forgets to mention the reason why it works: no software patents.
However, his canned history of software patents is very revealing. It shows a clear thread of the patent office caving in and sacrificing its principles under the pressure from "big shots" wanting to make even more $$$$$, supported by the courts. If any patents are to work, the patent office rules must be well though out and protected from lawyers' pressures. After all, the lawyers are profiting from the troll's shark frenzy that they helped to create.
A public corporation is a ficticious legal personna that has the same rights as a real person but not the same responsibilities. This is just a legal invention and as such it could be changed and/or improved upon. Unpopular as it may be with the wannabe corporation executives here.