OldMugwump 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Predictive Text Patent Troll Tries To Shake Down Wikipedia

    OldMugwump ( profile ), 29 Apr, 2020 @ 04:47pm

    Naturally they're not going after Google

    (I mean, you say "predictive text", I think "Google".)

    ..because Google has the means to fight back.

    So they go after a non-profit. What nice guys.

  • On the post: US Patent Office: Supreme Court Made Us Reject More Patents, But We've Now Fixed That And Are Back To Approving Bad Patents

    OldMugwump ( profile ), 27 Apr, 2020 @ 10:54am

    Re: Abuse of power

    I don't think the USPTO's reaction to Alice has anything to do with Mr. Trump. For once, can we leave him out of this?

  • On the post: Famed Law Professor Richard Epstein's Ever Changing Claims About How Many People Will Die From COVID-19

    OldMugwump ( profile ), 24 Apr, 2020 @ 10:31am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Terrible shame

    ...or, as I wrote 9 years ago: http://mugwumpery.com/?p=239

  • On the post: Famed Law Professor Richard Epstein's Ever Changing Claims About How Many People Will Die From COVID-19

    OldMugwump ( profile ), 24 Apr, 2020 @ 10:26am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Terrible shame

    Copyright actually worked quite well, with minimal side effects, before copying became cheap and easy. That started with photography, then photocopiers, now computers. Before all that, you needed either a scribe (expensive!) or a printing press (expensive!) to make copies. The cost of reproduction was a significant fraction of the value of the book - there were relatively few publishers, so copyright was easy (or at least possible) to police. Circumstances changed. Copyright was a good idea in it's day. That day is past.

  • On the post: Famed Law Professor Richard Epstein's Ever Changing Claims About How Many People Will Die From COVID-19

    OldMugwump ( profile ), 23 Apr, 2020 @ 10:12am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Terrible shame

    I haven't read Epstein's position on IP, so I don't know what he actually claims. However of course you're right in general - if the assumptions are flawed, all the conclusions of logical reasoning from those assumptions (however brilliant) are also flawed. The institution of property exists in every human culture - I think it's reasonable to think, based on experience and cultural evolution, that it's a useful institution. "IP" is a historically recent invention that doesn't exist at all in most historical cultures. So there's a lot less reason to think it's useful. The arguments that support rights to ordinary property don't apply - at all - to IP, because if I copy your idea or pattern of bits, you still have it. I find it interesting that F. A. Hayek, who came from a similar intellectual tradition as Epstein, was not supportive of IP. In The Constitution of Liberty he wrote on patents:

    The growth of knowledge is of such special importance because, while the material resources will always remain scarce and will have to be reserved for limited purposes, the users of new knowledge (where we do not make them artificially scarce by patents of monopoly ) are unrestricted. Knowledge, once achieved, becomes gratuitously available for the benefit of all. It is through this free gift of the knowledge acquired by the experiments of some members of society that general progress is made possible, that the achievements of those who have gone before facilitate the advance of those who follow.
    And in The Fatal Conceit, on copyright:
    Just to illustrate how great our ignorance of the optimum forms of delimitation of various rights remains – despite our confidence in the indispensability of the general institution of several property – a few remarks about one particular form of property may be made. […] The difference between [intellectual property] and other kinds of property rights is this: while ownership of material goods guides the user of scarce means to their most important uses, in the case of immaterial goods such as literary productions and technological inventions the ability to produce them is also limited, yet once they have come into existence, they can be indefinitely multiplied and can be made scarce only by law in order to create an inducement to produce such ideas. Yet it is not obvious that such forced scarcity is the most effective way to stimulate the human creative process.
    (Emphasis and elisions are mine.) He went on to say (this was 1988) that, however, he couldn't imagine anyone bothering to write an encyclopedia if not for copyright. :-) :-)

  • On the post: Famed Law Professor Richard Epstein's Ever Changing Claims About How Many People Will Die From COVID-19

    OldMugwump ( profile ), 22 Apr, 2020 @ 12:29pm

    Re: Age is limiting mostly because one lets it be.

    I wish that were true. I'm guessing from your attitude about that that you're either (a) not old, (b) in exceptionally good health, or (c) deluded about your own mental capacities. (c) seems to be pretty common in older people. In fact, as they get older not only does their mental ability decline, but often so does the ability to notice it. As I mentioned, my father noticeably and obviously declined starting from his late 70s (he's now 90 and still going). But HE hasn't noticed any difference at all - only the people around him notice it. I've witnessed the same thing in many brilliant and famous intellectuals - not only do they often suffer from the "Nobel effect" (thinking that because they know a lot about one thing, they therefore have something useful or insightful to say about other things), but as they age, they gradually become idiots and pale shadows of what they once were - but they don't notice it. I'm 20 years younger than Epstein and in good health, but I can tell that my own mental abilities are not what they were when I was 30. I think it's a normal and inevitable effect of age. I'm just able to tell because I'm doing much the same work I was at 30 and can compare the quality of what I do now, to what I did then (I'm still OK, but not as good as I was).

  • On the post: Famed Law Professor Richard Epstein's Ever Changing Claims About How Many People Will Die From COVID-19

    OldMugwump ( profile ), 22 Apr, 2020 @ 12:20pm

    Re: Re: Terrible shame

    A "brilliant legal scholar" is one who makes arguments that are compelling and logical, to other legal scholars. That doesn't mean that you, or I, or those other legal scholars agree with those arguments. It just means the guy makes good, self-consistent, arguments. And Epstein did. If you think he's wrong, that makes him dangerous, but it doesn't make him not a brilliant legal scholar.

  • On the post: Famed Law Professor Richard Epstein's Ever Changing Claims About How Many People Will Die From COVID-19

    OldMugwump ( profile ), 22 Apr, 2020 @ 12:16pm

    Re: Re: Terrible shame

    Could be; from your original post, it wasn't clear if you are unhappy with his statements about what the law is or about what the law ought to be. (On the latter I'm in agreement with you, Mike, 98% of the time. The former is a question of history and interpretation.)

  • On the post: Famed Law Professor Richard Epstein's Ever Changing Claims About How Many People Will Die From COVID-19

    OldMugwump ( profile ), 22 Apr, 2020 @ 10:30am

    Terrible shame

    So sad. Epstein is (or at least was) indeed a brilliant legal scholar - read his work and it's hard to come to any other conclusion, even if you disagree with him.

    He's 77 now, so may well have "lost it" (that was about the age when my father "lost it").

    But this surely goes to the long, long list of famous and respected people who dig themselves deep holes when they attempt to opine outside their field of expertise.

  • On the post: Dish's Wireless Network, A Cornerstone of the T-Mobile Merger, Is Already On Shaky Ground

    OldMugwump ( profile ), 15 Apr, 2020 @ 03:10pm

    Re: Re: STARLINK IS COMING

    Mr. Musk has a long history now of delivering on his promises. Late, usually. But eventually. 360 satellites have already been launched; 60 more are scheduled to launch April 23. That represents a lot of investment (not mostly Musk's money, but his investors). That's a lot of satellites, and a lot of money invested. Already. I think it's going to happen.

  • On the post: Is There Any Form Of Corruption Senator Burr Didn't Engage In?

    OldMugwump ( profile ), 15 Apr, 2020 @ 03:05pm

    Re: Ethics

    I wish this sort of thing were confined to Republicans. But it seems to affect all parties, in all countries. Something about the nature of power and entitlement.

  • On the post: Dish's Wireless Network, A Cornerstone of the T-Mobile Merger, Is Already On Shaky Ground

    OldMugwump ( profile ), 15 Apr, 2020 @ 07:13am

    STARLINK IS COMING

    https://www.starlink.com/

  • On the post: Corporations Not Happy Innovators Have 'Hacked' The Crappy U.S. Binding Arbitration System

    OldMugwump ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2020 @ 04:18pm

    You do the best you can do, with the knowledge you have

    In a crisis, you make the best judgement you can until more information comes in. You don't sit on your hands doing nothing, waiting for p to become less then 0.05. If the best we can do now is suggest a drug that may help (some weak evidence) and won't do much harm (decades of experience) then you suggest it. While at the same time "looking elsewhere for a real treatment".

  • On the post: Corporations Not Happy Innovators Have 'Hacked' The Crappy U.S. Binding Arbitration System

    OldMugwump ( profile ), 10 Apr, 2020 @ 08:43am

    Re: Retraction (not)

    It's not a retraction. It's a response to some complaints by 3rd parties. Read it: https://www.isac.world/news-and-publications/official-isac-statement The case for hydrooxychloroquinine is far from proven by one small study, but there is substantial evidence that it helps with COVID-19, and the side effects are mostly mild (unless you take excessively high doses). Politics aside, in emergencies sometimes we have to make decisions on weak data. If I get COVID-19, I'll take it.

  • On the post: How Do You Moderate COVID-19 Misinformation When It's Coming From Official Sources?

    OldMugwump ( profile ), 01 Apr, 2020 @ 01:15pm

    Re: Re: WHO is sending propaganda (very unwise decision)

    I know the author personally - he's one of the smartest people I know and a MIT graduate. He did a careful analysis. (My wife is an MD and she agrees with him.)

  • On the post: How Do You Moderate COVID-19 Misinformation When It's Coming From Official Sources?

    OldMugwump ( profile ), 01 Apr, 2020 @ 10:57am

    WHO is sending propaganda (very unwise decision)

    Masks - even crappy home-made ones - are immensely better than no mask at all.

    See: https://medium.com/@jroberts_25911/face-coverings-and-covid-19-120586cffbdd

    Unfortunately the WHO and CDC have decided to peddle half-truths (at best) in the (noble) effort to prevent hoarding and save masks for heath care workers.

    Preventing hoarding is necessary, but undermining the trust in medical authorities is not going to end well.

  • On the post: Someone Convinced Google To Delist Our Entire Right To Be Forgotten Tag In The EU For Searches On Their Name

    OldMugwump ( profile ), 27 Mar, 2020 @ 10:11am

    May I suggest

    That Techdirt reposts the same articles under another tag?

    Say "abuse of right to be forgotten"?

  • On the post: Body Camera Once Again Catches An NYPD Officer Planting Drugs In Someone's Car

    OldMugwump ( profile ), 19 Mar, 2020 @ 11:42am

    Re: If you're innocent, don't plead guilty.

    Also, if they ask to search your car, politely decline that offer. If they have probable cause, they won't ask. They'll just search.

  • On the post: Body Camera Once Again Catches An NYPD Officer Planting Drugs In Someone's Car

    OldMugwump ( profile ), 19 Mar, 2020 @ 11:39am

    If you're innocent, don't plead guilty.

    Consider it your social duty to gum up the system with lots of cases.

  • On the post: Volunteers 3D-Print Unobtainable $11,000 Valve For $1 To Keep Covid-19 Patients Alive; Original Manufacturer Threatens To Sue

    OldMugwump ( profile ), 18 Mar, 2020 @ 01:53am

    Re: Is that worth more than a single human life?

    At some point, yes, money is worth more than a single human life. We can save lives by spending money. If we spend more than the amount needed to save a life, then yes, that amount of money is worth more than a single human life. Because it could save more than one life.

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