Nuh-uh. I'm a 50-something who owns a lot of collectible tube gear -- Quad II's, ST-70s, etc. -- and although my brain still works fine, my hands have gotten too shaky to manage a soldering iron in close quarters. Given the fact that tube amps usually comprise far higher voltages than solid-state models, tubes are not the right solution for someone with impaired manual functionality. In fact, I did blow up one nice amp last year b/c I couldn't solder in some caps that would have been easy to work with 20 years ago. Wound up having to buy a populated board to fix the problem -- something that I would never have considered when I could have built up my own module.
Not to go all Chevy Chase on you whippersnappers, but this does really suck and, if you're lucky, it's what you have to look forward to. I'm still the same guy I was when I was 20 (albeit a lot smarter, of course), but some stupid synapses are stopping me from enjoying nifty new tools like the Arduino platform. Que lastima.
You won't quite get in under $50, but Grado has long (like since the 1990s) been known for outstanding quality of its sub-$100 open-air phones. Surprisingdetail, fairly free from colorations and f.r. anomalies, unfatiguing high-end. Not a lot of extension at either end of the response curve, of course, but the bass that is there is tight and detailed (kick drums tend to be percussive, not boomy) and transients have a lot of "snap." The $69 & $79 models are IMO no-brainers in a world where people gladly pay multiples of those figures for horrible, overhyped, bass-heavy products like Dr. Dre's. All the Grado's also boast decent form factors -- light and sturdy, although they're not a foldable, back-pocket type of product. If you can live with going $10 or $20 over your budget, it may not be hard to find more detailed reviews in reputable audio-gear journals. Despite the low price, products in this line havefor decades been considered entry-level audiophile products. IMO, Grado should be the starting point for anyone looking for headphones in this price range. As for me, I purchased a $330 pair of Etymotic canalphones 15 years ago, spent another $100 for custom-molded eartips and will never go back. Nothing short of $4000 Stax electrostatics clearly surpasses them. If you're serious about music, consider saving up some money and picking up a pair. But if you want best bang for your buck, knowledgable audiophiles will all put the Grado SR60 & SR80 near the top of their short lists.
Re: the postings below attacking this article, I agree that it's become increasingly apparent that no person with decision-making authority at Slashdot has a rudimentary understanding of how patent law works. Summaries just as inaccurate and misleading as this one have lately appeared on Slashdot at least weekly. Given the enormous size of the SD userbase, can't we find one person -- say, a patent practitioner -- with the slightest clue of how intellectual property law works -- to vet submissions related to patent law? Speaking as a patent attorney myself, I'm discouraged by how the SD community, which so consistently engages in intelligent discussion in other areas, sounds like a radio talkshow audience when the topic turns to IP. Do we really want to be part of the "anyone who knows what they're talking about cannot be trusted --> we should only trust those who don't know what they're talking about" mindset? Can anybody hear me?
Heh, Theaetetus, you have *got* to be a patent attorney.
I say this because: i) Unlike most posters here, you actually know how the patent system works; and ii) Your comments have the precision, lack of ambiguity, lucidity, and focus of a well-written patent application.
Yeah, it's "obvious" all right. If a company sells a defective product, it's liable to legal action in tort (and possible criminal or class action suit under various consumer-protection statutes) if that company refuses to repair or replace the defective merchandise. This is especially true if the defect is serious and capable of causing injury, as it is here.
If you disagree, I have all sorts of stuff I'd like to sell you.
This summary and the article it's based on are both dismal failures. They are rabid, uninformed rantings of anti-patent morons.
The only thing you have to do to have a patent not get published until it issues is file a non-publication request
You just saved me a posting, Zordak. It should have been obvious that nobody here was talking about "keeping patents secret." The proposal was instead to provide a new ground for applicants to circumvent pre-1990s-era pre-issuance publication requirement. Even under the most willfully ignorant reading of the proposal, there's no suggestion that issued "patents be kept secret."
That's not to say that I don't have my own problems with the proposal. I don't like the idea of using economic value as a justification for deferential treatment (if that's an accurate way to characterize non-publication). OTOH, I do understand that economic considerations crop up in other areas of the patent system, such as when awarding special priority to apps that are facing imminent infringement. Here, though, economic value might be too vague a parameter to be fair. It's all in the implementation.
The other potential issue I see is that the pre-issuance publication requirement was closely tied to changes in patent term (which now begins from filing date, not date of issuance). Arbitrarily decoupling the two IMO throws the policies that underlie them out of sync and makes it easier to do so again in the future
As for your opening remark about the Slashdot poster and source article being "dismal failures," jeez, that's harsh, guy. "Anti-patent morons"?? Whew! Not nice. The sad thing, though, is that those comments are pretty accurate. Not only did the article (yes, I read it) have an extraordinarily high density of misinformation and truly ignorant conclusive statements, but far too many of the reader comments that followed it were, um, yes, moronic.
You know, enabling technologies can be great. But when it comes to IP law, Slashdot seems to follow the Rush Limbo rule: "If you have the education or experience to discuss an issue intelligently, you can't be trusted because you're part of the system. Only those who have no idea what they're talking about can be trusted." To paraphrase Garry Trudeau, anybody who gets their news about intellectual property from Slashdot is deep merde indeed.
One posting from an obvious practitioner like Zordak helps make up for a dozen self-important pieces of gibberish from the "the patent system is broke, dude!" Peanut Gallery. (You know who you are.)
The author's reaction is typical and, as the article implies, expected. You see the same thing when iPod-earbud music fans hear an audiophile-class sound system for the first time. They're initially confused & disappointed. The more accurate system sounds like it has no bass and no high-end and everything sounds kind of, um, "empty." Those that want to pursue the issue further soon realize that that's the way the real world sounds. Psychoacousticians find that the brain accommodates audio distortion and we subconsciously filter it out when listening to what we know to be reproductions. In other words, our brains expect certain distortions when listening to recordings. When we listen to a more accurate reproduction system, our expectations are unfulfilled and it's initially confusing. Now I'm just guessing here, but I am guessing that the same is true for higher-frame-rate, more accurate video. It's understandable that the author was distressed at seeing video without the barely perceptible flicker, grain, reduced contrast, and artifacts of film. But the real question is how long it will take for a viewer to accommodate to the loss of expected artifacts. I'd bet that, just as in audio, once one gets used to 48fps -- gets used to video with far less distortion -- 24 or 32fps will truly look crappy.
>>all of them indicate that merely identifying the gene allows them to be patentable.Not create. Not move from one species to another. Merely identifying the existence of it.
Seriously, no.
RTFM or at least RYOFLs (Your Own Links). One example from the first reference: ""While this does not quite boil down to [the patent holders] owning our genes, these rights exclude us from using our genes for those purposes that are covered in the patent[.]"
And, even more to the point, if you're getting your information about nuances of patent law from the friggin' Register or discovery.com, you need to question most of what you know. Read the actual opinions: a link is at the top of the page.
This is one example of why the so many postings that crop up on Slashdot every time somebody posts an IP-related news item are so annoying. At least the people who post on Patently-O (follow the other link in the news item), although often just as opinionated & self-important, usually have enough of a clue to make the attitude a bit defensible. Yes, there are a few people here who apparently work in the patent field, but they're generally inundated by the "The patent system is broke dude! Everybody knows it. End of story!!" crowd. Sigh.
Pap smears work for men as well as women. HPV is a serious issue for the gay community, where rates of anal cancer are much higher than they are for the general population. This recommendation is long overdue and would likely have been issued years ago, were it not for the anti-vaccination folks.
>There are two main theories groups that attempt to explain the creation of the Universe and the origin of life and humanity.
Group 1. Big Bang & Evolution. Essentially this version says, it all just happened, mostly by accident but with the amount of time and mass involved it was inevitable.
Group 2. Created by God (or gods). Essentially this version says it all originated from the imagination of a being with virtually unlimited intelligence and power.
Actually, this is a common misconception that has been repeated so many times that people now accept it as gospel. (ouch!) But it's actually just a piece of ignorant baloney that has allowed the Creationists, Flat Earth Society, or whatever it is they're calling themselves these days, to exploit an ambiguity in the English language.
"Theory" has two common meanings. In everyday conversation, it means a postulated explanation of something. Sherlock Holmes: "Watson, I have a theory!" Such a theory may or may not make any sense when scrutinized closely or subjected to logical analysis. The "created by gods" theories fit this description.
A scientific "theory" is something else entirely. Such a theory is an organized explanation of observable phenomena. But it is far more than the Creationism class of "theory," which, in the scientific community, would more accurately be referred to as a "hypothesis." Hypotheses don't become theories until they are vetted by an enormous number of scientific experiments and it is widely accepted that it is virtually impossible that they could be false. However, there is some reason why that are not considered provene "facts." This might be because the current state-of-the-art does not allow experiments to be conducted that could prove the theory in question, using the scientific method. Or, in some cases, that the theory, by its very nature, cannot be proven or disproven by the control/variable scientific method. Think of the theory of special relativity or the theory of gravitation. Evolution is such a "theory." There is an immense, virtually indisputable, and still growing, body of evidence showing natural selection to be real. If the results of the enormous number of observations verifying the existence of an evolutionary process were wrong, the ripple effects would topple nearly all of our current scientific knowledge. Carbon dating would have to be wrong --> our understanding of nuclear would have to be wrong --> etc. You get the picture.
So, OK, while I realize that your message was tongue-in-cheek and your point is well-taken, after decades of hearing people make these cringeworthy, ignorant, and ultimately silly efforts to place religious "theories" like Creationism or Intelligent Design in parity with a scientific "theory" like natural selection, I just had to point out the obvious, just one time!!
Nothing personal, guy. And I agree that it's ultimately cool that there probably is intelligent life. I'm not sure that we'll ever encounter it, for a # of reasons beyond the scope of this message, but I really hope that I live to see it happen.
Slashdot Mirror
Nuh-uh. I'm a 50-something who owns a lot of collectible tube gear -- Quad II's, ST-70s, etc. -- and although my brain still works fine, my hands have gotten too shaky to manage a soldering iron in close quarters. Given the fact that tube amps usually comprise far higher voltages than solid-state models, tubes are not the right solution for someone with impaired manual functionality. In fact, I did blow up one nice amp last year b/c I couldn't solder in some caps that would have been easy to work with 20 years ago. Wound up having to buy a populated board to fix the problem -- something that I would never have considered when I could have built up my own module. Not to go all Chevy Chase on you whippersnappers, but this does really suck and, if you're lucky, it's what you have to look forward to. I'm still the same guy I was when I was 20 (albeit a lot smarter, of course), but some stupid synapses are stopping me from enjoying nifty new tools like the Arduino platform. Que lastima.
You won't quite get in under $50, but Grado has long (like since the 1990s) been known for outstanding quality of its sub-$100 open-air phones. Surprisingdetail, fairly free from colorations and f.r. anomalies, unfatiguing high-end. Not a lot of extension at either end of the response curve, of course, but the bass that is there is tight and detailed (kick drums tend to be percussive, not boomy) and transients have a lot of "snap." The $69 & $79 models are IMO no-brainers in a world where people gladly pay multiples of those figures for horrible, overhyped, bass-heavy products like Dr. Dre's. All the Grado's also boast decent form factors -- light and sturdy, although they're not a foldable, back-pocket type of product. If you can live with going $10 or $20 over your budget, it may not be hard to find more detailed reviews in reputable audio-gear journals. Despite the low price, products in this line havefor decades been considered entry-level audiophile products. IMO, Grado should be the starting point for anyone looking for headphones in this price range. As for me, I purchased a $330 pair of Etymotic canalphones 15 years ago, spent another $100 for custom-molded eartips and will never go back. Nothing short of $4000 Stax electrostatics clearly surpasses them. If you're serious about music, consider saving up some money and picking up a pair. But if you want best bang for your buck, knowledgable audiophiles will all put the Grado SR60 & SR80 near the top of their short lists.
Re: the postings below attacking this article, I agree that it's become increasingly apparent that no person with decision-making authority at Slashdot has a rudimentary understanding of how patent law works. Summaries just as inaccurate and misleading as this one have lately appeared on Slashdot at least weekly. Given the enormous size of the SD userbase, can't we find one person -- say, a patent practitioner -- with the slightest clue of how intellectual property law works -- to vet submissions related to patent law? Speaking as a patent attorney myself, I'm discouraged by how the SD community, which so consistently engages in intelligent discussion in other areas, sounds like a radio talkshow audience when the topic turns to IP. Do we really want to be part of the "anyone who knows what they're talking about cannot be trusted --> we should only trust those who don't know what they're talking about" mindset? Can anybody hear me?
Heh, Theaetetus, you have *got* to be a patent attorney. I say this because: i) Unlike most posters here, you actually know how the patent system works; and ii) Your comments have the precision, lack of ambiguity, lucidity, and focus of a well-written patent application.
Yeah, it's "obvious" all right. If a company sells a defective product, it's liable to legal action in tort (and possible criminal or class action suit under various consumer-protection statutes) if that company refuses to repair or replace the defective merchandise. This is especially true if the defect is serious and capable of causing injury, as it is here. If you disagree, I have all sorts of stuff I'd like to sell you.
This summary and the article it's based on are both dismal failures. They are rabid, uninformed rantings of anti-patent morons.
The only thing you have to do to have a patent not get published until it issues is file a non-publication request
You just saved me a posting, Zordak. It should have been obvious that nobody here was talking about "keeping patents secret." The proposal was instead to provide a new ground for applicants to circumvent pre-1990s-era pre-issuance publication requirement. Even under the most willfully ignorant reading of the proposal, there's no suggestion that issued "patents be kept secret."
That's not to say that I don't have my own problems with the proposal. I don't like the idea of using economic value as a justification for deferential treatment (if that's an accurate way to characterize non-publication). OTOH, I do understand that economic considerations crop up in other areas of the patent system, such as when awarding special priority to apps that are facing imminent infringement. Here, though, economic value might be too vague a parameter to be fair. It's all in the implementation.
The other potential issue I see is that the pre-issuance publication requirement was closely tied to changes in patent term (which now begins from filing date, not date of issuance). Arbitrarily decoupling the two IMO throws the policies that underlie them out of sync and makes it easier to do so again in the future
As for your opening remark about the Slashdot poster and source article being "dismal failures," jeez, that's harsh, guy. "Anti-patent morons"?? Whew! Not nice. The sad thing, though, is that those comments are pretty accurate. Not only did the article (yes, I read it) have an extraordinarily high density of misinformation and truly ignorant conclusive statements, but far too many of the reader comments that followed it were, um, yes, moronic.
You know, enabling technologies can be great. But when it comes to IP law, Slashdot seems to follow the Rush Limbo rule: "If you have the education or experience to discuss an issue intelligently, you can't be trusted because you're part of the system. Only those who have no idea what they're talking about can be trusted." To paraphrase Garry Trudeau, anybody who gets their news about intellectual property from Slashdot is deep merde indeed.
One posting from an obvious practitioner like Zordak helps make up for a dozen self-important pieces of gibberish from the "the patent system is broke, dude!" Peanut Gallery. (You know who you are.)
The author's reaction is typical and, as the article implies, expected. You see the same thing when iPod-earbud music fans hear an audiophile-class sound system for the first time. They're initially confused & disappointed. The more accurate system sounds like it has no bass and no high-end and everything sounds kind of, um, "empty." Those that want to pursue the issue further soon realize that that's the way the real world sounds. Psychoacousticians find that the brain accommodates audio distortion and we subconsciously filter it out when listening to what we know to be reproductions. In other words, our brains expect certain distortions when listening to recordings. When we listen to a more accurate reproduction system, our expectations are unfulfilled and it's initially confusing. Now I'm just guessing here, but I am guessing that the same is true for higher-frame-rate, more accurate video. It's understandable that the author was distressed at seeing video without the barely perceptible flicker, grain, reduced contrast, and artifacts of film. But the real question is how long it will take for a viewer to accommodate to the loss of expected artifacts. I'd bet that, just as in audio, once one gets used to 48fps -- gets used to video with far less distortion -- 24 or 32fps will truly look crappy.
>>all of them indicate that merely identifying the gene allows them to be patentable.Not create. Not move from one species to another. Merely identifying the existence of it.
Seriously, no.
RTFM or at least RYOFLs (Your Own Links). One example from the first reference: ""While this does not quite boil down to [the patent holders] owning our genes, these rights exclude us from using our genes for those purposes that are covered in the patent[.]"
And, even more to the point, if you're getting your information about nuances of patent law from the friggin' Register or discovery.com, you need to question most of what you know. Read the actual opinions: a link is at the top of the page.
This is one example of why the so many postings that crop up on Slashdot every time somebody posts an IP-related news item are so annoying. At least the people who post on Patently-O (follow the other link in the news item), although often just as opinionated & self-important, usually have enough of a clue to make the attitude a bit defensible. Yes, there are a few people here who apparently work in the patent field, but they're generally inundated by the "The patent system is broke dude! Everybody knows it. End of story!!" crowd. Sigh.
Pap smears work for men as well as women. HPV is a serious issue for the gay community, where rates of anal cancer are much higher than they are for the general population. This recommendation is long overdue and would likely have been issued years ago, were it not for the anti-vaccination folks.
>There are two main theories groups that attempt to explain the creation of the Universe and the origin of life and humanity. Group 1. Big Bang & Evolution. Essentially this version says, it all just happened, mostly by accident but with the amount of time and mass involved it was inevitable. Group 2. Created by God (or gods). Essentially this version says it all originated from the imagination of a being with virtually unlimited intelligence and power. Actually, this is a common misconception that has been repeated so many times that people now accept it as gospel. (ouch!) But it's actually just a piece of ignorant baloney that has allowed the Creationists, Flat Earth Society, or whatever it is they're calling themselves these days, to exploit an ambiguity in the English language. "Theory" has two common meanings. In everyday conversation, it means a postulated explanation of something. Sherlock Holmes: "Watson, I have a theory!" Such a theory may or may not make any sense when scrutinized closely or subjected to logical analysis. The "created by gods" theories fit this description. A scientific "theory" is something else entirely. Such a theory is an organized explanation of observable phenomena. But it is far more than the Creationism class of "theory," which, in the scientific community, would more accurately be referred to as a "hypothesis." Hypotheses don't become theories until they are vetted by an enormous number of scientific experiments and it is widely accepted that it is virtually impossible that they could be false. However, there is some reason why that are not considered provene "facts." This might be because the current state-of-the-art does not allow experiments to be conducted that could prove the theory in question, using the scientific method. Or, in some cases, that the theory, by its very nature, cannot be proven or disproven by the control/variable scientific method. Think of the theory of special relativity or the theory of gravitation. Evolution is such a "theory." There is an immense, virtually indisputable, and still growing, body of evidence showing natural selection to be real. If the results of the enormous number of observations verifying the existence of an evolutionary process were wrong, the ripple effects would topple nearly all of our current scientific knowledge. Carbon dating would have to be wrong --> our understanding of nuclear would have to be wrong --> etc. You get the picture. So, OK, while I realize that your message was tongue-in-cheek and your point is well-taken, after decades of hearing people make these cringeworthy, ignorant, and ultimately silly efforts to place religious "theories" like Creationism or Intelligent Design in parity with a scientific "theory" like natural selection, I just had to point out the obvious, just one time!! Nothing personal, guy. And I agree that it's ultimately cool that there probably is intelligent life. I'm not sure that we'll ever encounter it, for a # of reasons beyond the scope of this message, but I really hope that I live to see it happen.