It sure seems like China seems to be making most of it’s scientific and technological progress not by innovation, but by a rather lackadaisical understanding of copyright, patent and intellectual property laws. In other words… they see other people invent stuff, then they steal it and have their slave laborers manufacture it by the kiloton.

Well… so long as they go that route, they’ll remain *users* of the fruits of science, but not *understanders* of it. And thus:

Someone stole a piece of China’s new solar panel-paved road less than a week after it opened

Anybody remember “Solar Freakin Roadways?”

Interestingly, the Chinese went whole-hog on their version, building a full kilometer of it. But hey, apparently a competing firm swiped a bit of it and will use that bit to create a knock-off of a knock-off. If by some miracle (and given how the math on these things doesn’t even begin to work, it would *have* to be a miracle) someone in China makes this hare-brained system work… well, it’ll be fair game to swipe it and build it here in the US, royalty-free.