The problem is a hash algorithm is exactly the sort of thing that copyright would be horrible at protecting. The source code is hardly relevant at all, it's the operations that matter.
A big part of patents is to allow private sector research to occur. RCA failed and maybe patents should just fail too.
It's not about logic it's about feeling.
Yeah all that is true (at least I'm fairly sure), but because it's a virus the "feeling" of responsibility just isn't there.
It's too abstract. The virus has a life of its own. Blaming Trump for those deaths is kind of like blaming Biden for hurricane that hit North Carolina.
Yeah, Trump could've implemented policies that he didn't that the experts have told us could've saved lives. However, that's all hypothetical savings.
That's very different than "Trump deported my friend" or "Trump's FDA let heavy metals into my Little Debbie's" or "Trump's economic policy resulted in me losing my home because I couldn't afford to live."
like the umbrella wedge/spring to make it open automatically.
That to me is a very specific algorithm. It's a simple mechanism but putting it together might be a bit tricky.
That's very similar to SHA, it's a fairly simple set of mechanisms but the actual composure of those ideas into something that works as well as SHA does takes very specific research experience. It's not at all an abstract idea, it's a very concrete and specific set of operations that you invented first.
Imagine if the patent was "an umbrella can open itself with the push of button" no further details. That's close to the level of detail some software patents are argued at and effectively what the "put a game in your loading screen" patent was awarded on.
You can't patent the idea that "an umbrella should be able to open [somehow]" so I likewise think it's ridiculous that someone was able to parent "your game [somehow] runs another simpler game before it runs."
Patents should be to protect very specific research so that the private sector can do said research and profit from it. Patents should not block out broad concepts. The patent in the video game situation was and should've been ruled as bogus. It's not the type of thing anyone needed to research or think about, you just literally go "what if I added a game to my loading screen" and you're in violation.
I think software patents should really only apply to extremely tricky algorithmic "discoveries" (which I would consider inventions, as someone that's written a SHA256 implementation from reference material, nobody is "just coming up with that").
"Ingenuity patents" like that loading screen game are everything that's wrong with software patents. It's not all that crazy of an idea to add a game while waiting to play the main game. There's no radical research required there, just an idea.
I don't think vague ideas like "a game in a loading screen" are sufficiently creative to warrant a patent.
Or at least the bar should be much much higher. Like if you've invented the SHA algorithm... Fine.
However, if you've just invented "a way to purchase something over the network via a phone"... That is not patent worthy.
Yeah, unfortunately I think we're at a point where people are going to need to get burned first hand to have their minds changed.
We're also living in an era where regulator bodies have been repeatedly weakened by large companies and interest groups.
Does that fire resistance hold up over a decade, two decades, a century, etc? Even if internationally regulatory bodies are 100% in good hands ... there's no way everybody is using the same blend of wood + fire retardant.
Also how realistic are the laboratory conditions? Do the same testing rules apply if an accelerate has been used to increase the burn rate?
What about the human impact? What's the impact of inhaling smoke off of these? Environmental impact from the gasses inevitably produced?
How repairable is the timber structure in case of fire?
These questions have pretty reasonable answer for steel and concrete because we have decades of experience with it.
I'm not an expert in this space but this seems like an incredibly dangerous gamble to take for not much gain. Concrete and steel are reliable building materials that are mostly issues because of the energy cost to produce them. Fix the energy supply chain and they're about as green as anything else.
This isn't being pitched because it's "better than steel and concrete" it's being pitched as "green" and call me a cynic but if it was actually "better" than concrete and steel and safer than concrete and steel, they would outright say that. Arbitrarily being "more green" with no other information (and being based on a material that is supposed to combust but doesn't), is a huge red flag.
Because these are literal sky scrapers. Fire on a wood structure is a recipe for catastrophic failure. A fire in a large structure could have similar effects to those large high rise condos that collapsed in Florida from poor maintenance.
This is very likely dangerous deregulation of the fire code to cut costs being "green washed" as a new thing that needs a hell of a lot more scrutiny. Building large structures with wood WAS a thing in the past, it was outlawed because it's EXTREMELY dangerous when one of those structures ignites.
They're only getting away with it because these are composite timbers which have been "tested" to be safer. I'm very skeptical that those tests are comprehensive, at least to the point where I would feel comfortable spending a significant portion of my life in one of these buildings.
The problem is we had a car salesperson selling us a genuinely nice comfortable, reliable, family car vs a car salesperson selling us a "sports car" from some unknown decade with a number of questionable but loudly expressed selling points we don't understand "IT'S GOT A TURBO BOOSTMAX 9000! THAT OTHER CAR DOESN'T HAVE THAT! IT MIGHT EVEN INTENTIONALLY KILL YOU WITH ITS SO CALLED SAFETY FEATURES" belittling us for even considering taking the family car.
... we bought the "sports car."
There is a point where the salesperson is not the one responsible and the buyer is just genuinely stupid.
This is a very popular thought in the "leftist" and/or "progressive" space. However, what's your explanation for West Virginia?
I can't tell you how many people I've argued with that said "get rid of Manchin, run a real progressive."
https://web.archive.org/web/20240930203241/https://www.elliottforwv.com/issues/
Democrats are going to lose their Senate majority in no part because people decided it was better to harass Manchin into not running. Elliott is definitely much more progressive than Manchin ever was.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/west-virginia-senate-results
Elliott lost by a LANDSLIDE. How do you rationalize that? Shouldn't it have at least been close? Was he just not "progressive enough"?
With Linux you just open the software manager and search for it with effectively 0 chance of your grandma downloading a virus.
The app store model is the Linux model. Linux just doesn't have paid apps in said stores.