Apple has just put a patent on the term "smoking crack", people who use the term, and/or engage in the activity could now be charge with copyright infringement. This may prove to be the most serious blow to the crack consumers, and the illegal drugs industry at large........
Violating a patent doesn't cause people to infringe copyright. Anyhow, You mean trademark. They probably could indeed trademark the term. I mean, they trademarked "Podcast" when that term had already been in common use...
Objection! The prosecution is trying to win undue sympathy from the Californian Jurors! We demand a recess to urinanalyse proof of our own cannabis consumption!
But seriously, until somebody is paid to write the drivers prior to hardware release, why expect it to work?
I think the fact they bought what they bought, and did what they did is plenty to proceed with deductive reasoning. Given these facts, I propose the answer is simply: Ignorance.
( The truth never means to be offensive ).
Blame the manufacturer. I bought a brand new Toshiba laptop, and the finger print reader and wifi didn't work out of the box on Linux -- Everything else did. I called Toshiba Support, they routed me to the company that is actually MAKING THE OPEN SOURCE DRIVERS for those things. I downloaded the sources and compiled & installed via simple "./configure & make & make install". The kernel (& headers) were updated, so I had to recompile this driver about three weeks later, same one-liner. A month after that, the drivers were supported by the kernel, no more compiling each kernel update. Sure, it's not what every user should have to go through -- The drivers should have been pre-released -- but it is getting better (with SOME hardware vendors). It's the price of using Linux on brand new hardware (w/o paying a premium for ZaReason stuff that I know works).
It's like everyone bitching about system requirements for games. Yeah, it sucks, computers should be so much easier to use -- I'm working toward this end in my projects, it's just always more expensive to do the right thing than the quick thing; However, it's not like you have to be a rocket surgeon to actually use Linux nowadays.
Bonus! You can even install Windows on that ZaReason Hardware -- Aaaaaand! You can even install OSX! Oh, but only if you want to break the law. Screw you Apple. This is why I don't dev for your systems -- I have superior hardware, but it's illegal to install OSX on them. I'm not buying some more expensive and less powerful hardware just to join your hipster club. Want more (game) software for OSX? Too bad, Apple doesn't want me to make it.
I don't get this persistent desire of people to ignore reality. If something can be done, it will be. Should it be? Possibly not, but again you are ignoring the REALITY.
Can someone track your cell phone when it is on? Yes. Therefore it will be done. If that bothers you, turn it off if you are going somewhere you do not want to be found, or burn phones more often...
We're not ignoring reality, If the government was just as transparent to us as they want us to be to them, then I don't think there would really be an issue. I didn't see you saying the same thing in the article about the UK threatening to storm the Ecuadorian Embassy to get Julian Assange (just some remark about it being Clinton's fault). I do hope you'd apply the same logic here, the government is just ignoring the reality that the leaks exist. Right? That the governments go to such lengths to keep their private data private is a prime indicator that I should fight tooth and nail for my own privacy. It's the inequality of visibility AND power that's the problem.
You're going around shouting at different people and then the police ask these people where they think the noise was coming from. There's not asking what was being yelled, just which direction the noise is coming from. I can see this falling into the range of non-private data, as much as I would like to say it's not.
No. Or else Google wouldn't be in hot water for accidentally collecting snipits of the data that people were shouting with their unencrypted WIFI. IIRC, they were only trying to figure out where which shouts were coming from too...
(not sure what apple fans to, but normal phones can at least have their battery taken out easily and on-demand).
Apple is actually leading the way in this regard. Some people say this is wrong, but I hear that you get the same effect simply by holding the phone a certain way...
With that lead-in I expected a significant change in the service, but it sounds more like, "redesigned the website". Wow, they moved some buttons to a toolbar, too!
How quickly you forget how significant that can be... At risk of awaking that which shant be named, what recall have you of, "The Ribbon"?
I find the entire concept to be... well, unsettling from a security standpoint. Online systems have been and do continue to get hacked.
No sir, I don't trust cloud technology.
No should you. The "cloud" in a network diagram is where data goes to disappear, become unreliable, be attacked, come back exploited, etc. The less "cloud" in your network diagram the better it is! It's a hold over from drafting in general where you make cloud like lines around some part of the blueprint, which is later exploded into its individual pieces -- Except with a network diagram, "the cloud" isn't known -- We leave it mostly blank. It's as opaque, fluffy, and fickle as the clouds in the sky...
One thing is true in both real and digital clouds -- That's where all the Lightning comes from. I spend thousands of dollars to protect my data from The Clouds -- Whatever marketing moron thought this was a good analogy must have been a delusional twit... You only spend a moment being on Cloud 9 thinking, "This is heavenly," since you don't have wings. In no time at all that whole warped time-space gravity thing bounces you real hard.
Moral of the story: If you want to send your data to the cloud you better wrap it in a full body condom of encryption, gives it a cache of reserve parachutes, then invest in lightning rods, reserve batteries, and cloning technology -- Essentially, when you say "To The Cloud!", you better be wearing a bloody lab coat and follow up with a hearty Mad Scientist laugh! Mua ha ha HA HAA!
Say Ecuador calls their bluff. Can the UK storm in and show the world what a real US lapdog looks like? The fact that they would even threaten this shit shows just how FUCKED the world is right now.
He's ONE MAN. He's not breaking into your secure places and leaking your dirty fucking secrets. No, IT'S YOUR OWN PEOPLE who see the corruption and go to him to help them right the wrongs they see. Get rid of Assagnge. "Just do it"(tm). It won't change the fact YOUR OWN PEOPLE have moral problems with the wrongs going down. The right thing to do is STOP DOING EVIL. If you don't think that "making an example" of Assange will just embolden EVERYONE who is privy to questionable government bullshit to find another spokesperson and get the word out, then you really have no idea how Brits and Americans think.
You think "The Streisand Effect" is bad? Just wait till we have an excuse to coin the term "The Assange Effect".
I love how every review mentions how startup and/or shutdown times have improved slightly, as was the case when Windows 7 was released. However, they seem to miss two somewhat important aspects of this:
1. It is not very common for users to turn their PCs on and off several times during the day. Also, there's hibernate. I, for one, keep my PC on for weeks at a time unless I'm somehow forced to reboot, which brings me to...
2. While a regular startup has been getting a second or two faster with every release, the new Windows Update subsystem (introduced in Vista) means it takes BLOODY AGES TO SHUT DOWN THE DAMN OS if there happens to be updates pending, and if you're lucky IT WILL ALSO TAKE BLOODY AGES TO START THE DAMN THING UP AGAIN AFTERWARDS, as the update process is finished. And if you turn off the computer while this is happening, you will probably have to reinstall Windows.
I've hosed a few systems by shutting down a laptop after a meeting or presentation, only to find that Windows wanted to spend the next half an hour or so installing updates.
If you can even get the damn updates to install... I stopped using W7 when after several fresh installs it hung on a few critical vulnerability fixes. Fuck that, I already feel like I'm browsing around with a bullseye on my back, I'm not strapping dynamite on too -- Windows 8 sounds like adding blinders so I won't even know what hit me...
You wrongly assume that you can filter the entire history of all mankind through a tiny window of time and limited staff allotted to the evaluation of patents. Your artificial scarcity system is bogus. It needs to die. Quit your job. The Fashion industry doesn't need you, neither does Automotive industry need your design patents. The software industry doesn't need you either. What industry does? NONE. Face the facts: You grant bogus patents and let the ill-equipped court system ACTUALLY do your job.
As a scientist, If you say to me that without patents there is no incentive to research and innovate then I will say to you: "Prove it! That's an UNPROVEN Hypothesis." We must do the experiment to find out how much patents harm or benefit society. Times have changed so drastically since patent and copyright monopolies were conceived that not doing the experiment and eradicating patents should be seen as ridiculously negligent to the highest degree!
The system is inherently flawed. Were it not for the free flow of ideas we wouldn't have language -- We'd still be eeking out a living in the caves. We've never needed those who fill your job. It's not your fault, but it is YOUR problem.
Slashdot Mirror
Apple has just put a patent on the term "smoking crack", people who use the term, and/or engage in the activity could now be charge with copyright infringement. This may prove to be the most serious blow to the crack consumers, and the illegal drugs industry at large........
Violating a patent doesn't cause people to infringe copyright. Anyhow, You mean trademark. They probably could indeed trademark the term. I mean, they trademarked "Podcast" when that term had already been in common use...
Anyone else think the legal system would make more sense if they were smoking crack?
I think it would make more sense if they weren't... eventually.
Objection! The prosecution is trying to win undue sympathy from the Californian Jurors! We demand a recess to urinanalyse proof of our own cannabis consumption!
You don't mod stories, you mod posts.
B-But... I mod stories all the time in the Firehose.
However there are laws on the books and need to be followed.
No. There are laws on the books that SHOLDN'T BE THERE, but without them the Lawyers and Judges (who are also lawyers) wouldn't have jobs.
chroot
But seriously, until somebody is paid to write the drivers prior to hardware release, why expect it to work?
I think the fact they bought what they bought, and did what they did is plenty to proceed with deductive reasoning. Given these facts, I propose the answer is simply: Ignorance.
( The truth never means to be offensive ).
Blame the manufacturer. I bought a brand new Toshiba laptop, and the finger print reader and wifi didn't work out of the box on Linux -- Everything else did. I called Toshiba Support, they routed me to the company that is actually MAKING THE OPEN SOURCE DRIVERS for those things. I downloaded the sources and compiled & installed via simple "./configure & make & make install". The kernel (& headers) were updated, so I had to recompile this driver about three weeks later, same one-liner. A month after that, the drivers were supported by the kernel, no more compiling each kernel update. Sure, it's not what every user should have to go through -- The drivers should have been pre-released -- but it is getting better (with SOME hardware vendors). It's the price of using Linux on brand new hardware (w/o paying a premium for ZaReason stuff that I know works).
It's like everyone bitching about system requirements for games. Yeah, it sucks, computers should be so much easier to use -- I'm working toward this end in my projects, it's just always more expensive to do the right thing than the quick thing; However, it's not like you have to be a rocket surgeon to actually use Linux nowadays.
Bonus! You can even install Windows on that ZaReason Hardware -- Aaaaaand! You can even install OSX! Oh, but only if you want to break the law. Screw you Apple. This is why I don't dev for your systems -- I have superior hardware, but it's illegal to install OSX on them. I'm not buying some more expensive and less powerful hardware just to join your hipster club. Want more (game) software for OSX? Too bad, Apple doesn't want me to make it.
In short: Get your ass to Mars!
I don't get this persistent desire of people to ignore reality. If something can be done, it will be. Should it be? Possibly not, but again you are ignoring the REALITY.
Can someone track your cell phone when it is on? Yes. Therefore it will be done. If that bothers you, turn it off if you are going somewhere you do not want to be found, or burn phones more often...
We're not ignoring reality, If the government was just as transparent to us as they want us to be to them, then I don't think there would really be an issue. I didn't see you saying the same thing in the article about the UK threatening to storm the Ecuadorian Embassy to get Julian Assange (just some remark about it being Clinton's fault). I do hope you'd apply the same logic here, the government is just ignoring the reality that the leaks exist. Right? That the governments go to such lengths to keep their private data private is a prime indicator that I should fight tooth and nail for my own privacy. It's the inequality of visibility AND power that's the problem.
You're going around shouting at different people and then the police ask these people where they think the noise was coming from. There's not asking what was being yelled, just which direction the noise is coming from. I can see this falling into the range of non-private data, as much as I would like to say it's not.
No. Or else Google wouldn't be in hot water for accidentally collecting snipits of the data that people were shouting with their unencrypted WIFI. IIRC, they were only trying to figure out where which shouts were coming from too...
(not sure what apple fans to, but normal phones can at least have their battery taken out easily and on-demand).
Apple is actually leading the way in this regard. Some people say this is wrong, but I hear that you get the same effect simply by holding the phone a certain way...
That's the way you make new Open Source software...
how long can video, streaming servies, and games last?
Until they shut off the DRM servers?
Today's reading club will be focusing on a little gem in the same vein as the ever popular 50 Shades of Grease:
IB6 UB9
Mmmm, that it's made by a convict is all the more racy!
Mesh is/was a great product, MS just sucked at bringing it to people's attention.
Or, they realized it gave you too much control over your own data...
With that lead-in I expected a significant change in the service, but it sounds more like, "redesigned the website". Wow, they moved some buttons to a toolbar, too!
How quickly you forget how significant that can be... At risk of awaking that which shant be named, what recall have you of, "The Ribbon"?
I find the entire concept to be... well, unsettling from a security standpoint. Online systems have been and do continue to get hacked.
No sir, I don't trust cloud technology.
No should you. The "cloud" in a network diagram is where data goes to disappear, become unreliable, be attacked, come back exploited, etc. The less "cloud" in your network diagram the better it is! It's a hold over from drafting in general where you make cloud like lines around some part of the blueprint, which is later exploded into its individual pieces -- Except with a network diagram, "the cloud" isn't known -- We leave it mostly blank. It's as opaque, fluffy, and fickle as the clouds in the sky...
One thing is true in both real and digital clouds -- That's where all the Lightning comes from. I spend thousands of dollars to protect my data from The Clouds -- Whatever marketing moron thought this was a good analogy must have been a delusional twit... You only spend a moment being on Cloud 9 thinking, "This is heavenly," since you don't have wings. In no time at all that whole warped time-space gravity thing bounces you real hard.
Moral of the story: If you want to send your data to the cloud you better wrap it in a full body condom of encryption, gives it a cache of reserve parachutes, then invest in lightning rods, reserve batteries, and cloning technology -- Essentially, when you say "To The Cloud!", you better be wearing a bloody lab coat and follow up with a hearty Mad Scientist laugh! Mua ha ha HA HAA!
That "DRM Free" label looks suspiciously similar to the Free DRM! label -- or it will soon enough.
Say Ecuador calls their bluff. Can the UK storm in and show the world what a real US lapdog looks like? The fact that they would even threaten this shit shows just how FUCKED the world is right now.
He's ONE MAN. He's not breaking into your secure places and leaking your dirty fucking secrets. No, IT'S YOUR OWN PEOPLE who see the corruption and go to him to help them right the wrongs they see. Get rid of Assagnge. "Just do it"(tm). It won't change the fact YOUR OWN PEOPLE have moral problems with the wrongs going down. The right thing to do is STOP DOING EVIL. If you don't think that "making an example" of Assange will just embolden EVERYONE who is privy to questionable government bullshit to find another spokesperson and get the word out, then you really have no idea how Brits and Americans think.
You think "The Streisand Effect" is bad? Just wait till we have an excuse to coin the term "The Assange Effect".
I love how every review mentions how startup and/or shutdown times have improved slightly, as was the case when Windows 7 was released. However, they seem to miss two somewhat important aspects of this:
1. It is not very common for users to turn their PCs on and off several times during the day. Also, there's hibernate. I, for one, keep my PC on for weeks at a time unless I'm somehow forced to reboot, which brings me to...
2. While a regular startup has been getting a second or two faster with every release, the new Windows Update subsystem (introduced in Vista) means it takes BLOODY AGES TO SHUT DOWN THE DAMN OS if there happens to be updates pending, and if you're lucky IT WILL ALSO TAKE BLOODY AGES TO START THE DAMN THING UP AGAIN AFTERWARDS, as the update process is finished. And if you turn off the computer while this is happening, you will probably have to reinstall Windows.
I've hosed a few systems by shutting down a laptop after a meeting or presentation, only to find that Windows wanted to spend the next half an hour or so installing updates.
If you can even get the damn updates to install... I stopped using W7 when after several fresh installs it hung on a few critical vulnerability fixes. Fuck that, I already feel like I'm browsing around with a bullseye on my back, I'm not strapping dynamite on too -- Windows 8 sounds like adding blinders so I won't even know what hit me...
It's putting lipstick on a pig anyway.
New Windows 8 slogan: Kiss me, I'm Bacon!
You wrongly assume that you can filter the entire history of all mankind through a tiny window of time and limited staff allotted to the evaluation of patents. Your artificial scarcity system is bogus. It needs to die. Quit your job. The Fashion industry doesn't need you, neither does Automotive industry need your design patents. The software industry doesn't need you either. What industry does? NONE. Face the facts: You grant bogus patents and let the ill-equipped court system ACTUALLY do your job.
As a scientist, If you say to me that without patents there is no incentive to research and innovate then I will say to you: "Prove it! That's an UNPROVEN Hypothesis." We must do the experiment to find out how much patents harm or benefit society. Times have changed so drastically since patent and copyright monopolies were conceived that not doing the experiment and eradicating patents should be seen as ridiculously negligent to the highest degree!
The system is inherently flawed. Were it not for the free flow of ideas we wouldn't have language -- We'd still be eeking out a living in the caves. We've never needed those who fill your job. It's not your fault, but it is YOUR problem.
I find it hilarious this even had to be mentioned, and that folks found it "informative". :P