That’s the most complicated dad joke I’ve ever heard… I’ll have to add it to the dad-a-base.

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.

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.

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”?

Because as much as Palestine is supported on lemmy there’s a lot of support for Israel within the party as well.

Part of what the Trump campaign did successfully was make both of those caucuses believe that Democrats can offer them nothing while Trump might offer them a solution.

In practice, I would be surprised if Palestine isn’t leveled under the Trump administration with prejudice. Trump hasn’t been particularly kind to Muslims from what I’ve seen.

Obama in his book says similar things about the filibuster. It’s his major regret, not ending it when he had the chance so that he could’ve done more.

I think all three of those groups are in for a pretty bad wake up call regarding what their protest vote bought them…

That’s just it … He’s heavily invested in alternative energy…

Tesla makes electric cars, home and industrial battery packs, and rooftop solar. It’s in his interest for Republicans to believe in climate change.

At the very least it’s in his interest for Republicans to not squash electric cars and solar power.

Yes, there are a lot of them still lurking…

Liberty Tabletop, American Blanket Company, American Giant, Craftsman, etc

Republican voters

God I hope so

IIRC heat is the bigger issue for lithium batteries.

They’re temporarily less effective in cold weather but excessive heat is the battery killer.

People typically aren’t stuck on minimum wage because the powers that be won’t let them have a decent wage. Most adults are not on minimum wage ( in the US, less than 2% as of 2022; in the UK, low pay accounts for less than 4% as of 2024 ).

There’s something to be said for the rich taking advantage of folks, but … bothering worrying about abstract rich guy metrics like making the GDP go up is not going to help anyone get out of their situation.

Sure, focus on other aspects of politics like making education affordable, strengthening unions, etc things that will help you achieve your goals or help you once you’ve achieved your goals. However, there’s a lot one can directly do to address their situation that’s a lot less abstract than “vote for a representative, to write a bill, to potentially help you, to possibly get passed by your legislature, and possibly get passed by your executive branch (or your equivalent process).”

… and even then that latter concept has little to do with “why someone on minimum wage should pay attention to the GDP.”

So… Regardless of county, I would say minimum wage workers should not worry about the economy. Instead put that energy into finding a career path of some sort.

That’s not me bashing minimum wage workers, it’s just … the best thing a minimum wage worker can do to improve their circumstance.

Worrying about the GDP or stocks or anything else isn’t particularly helpful, especially if you’re living paycheck to paycheck (which at least in the US where I live, most minimum wage workers are).

Even for middle and upper middle class, worrying about GDP growth and how the stock market is doing day to day (unless you’re on the verge of retirement and trying to time cashing out stocks) is not a particularly helpful exercise.

Maybe it has some abstract effect on what social services you get or whether your employer survives another year… but you can probably find better indicators of that (e.g. in the days where computers were reducing paper usage, it should’ve been increasingly obvious that working at the paper mill probably wasn’t going to be a great long term plan).

Nintendo is in a very envious spot in general. Hell, I think Nintendo makes some great games, I just wish they wouldn’t force me to buy yet another computer solely for the purpose of playing their games. I haven’t owned a Mario Kart or Zelda game in years but I’d love to play if I could do so on PC/Linux.

Yeah, maybe I’m just wrong in general … The above doesn’t look that different from say black ops 6 footage.

I definitely wish for a return to the linear format (or simi linear where there are a few concurrent linear quests going on). I think straight up open world just lends itself to making a lot of walking simulators.

Halo Infinity was one of the most boring games I ever played between the weapons sounding like toys and the spread out objectives with no clear central mission.

Because graphics still sell games. You can do simplified graphics like Nintendo and still sell games, but lots of people want the photo realistic experience and the bar for that has gone way way up incrementally over the years.

https://youtu.be/GB20A8CitRU?si=ZN-V-FAnKjnxGHBs