It only preserves their ads when they're coming from the same server or domain . . . of course, there would then be an arms race between the ad companies and blockers for obfuscation, a la 1980s copy protection . . .
I am a lawyer, but this is not legal advice. If you want legal advice from me, pay my retainer. If you get your legal advice from slashdot, you deserver whatever happens . . .
Anyway, I've read much of the below. If you are in this situation, and it's not worth paying a lawyer who practices in this area, what you're doing isn't that important.
I don't work in IP at the moment, but there is enough misinformation below to keep several lawyers busy.
There is a reason for hiring a professional programmer instead of doing it yourself. Similarly, there is a reason to hire an actual lawyer rather than misinformation of the internet . . .
The Mac IIfx had a pair of chips each of which effectively had such a creature. One ran the serial/network ports, and I forget the other.
Had apple sold that chip, combined with the network that ran on the second (unused) pair of standard home wiring, they could have *owned* home automation years ahead . . .
And I'm kicking myself for not buying the used Apple ][ in a wooden case at the surplus store around the corner, which I've come to realize wasn't a ][ at all . . .:(
hawk, who still has his 128k mac and 1802 wirewrap systems
for hires, rather than reading the same 40 bytes eight times in a row, and feeding to a character generator,eight different sets of 40 bytes were read (of which six set bits, and two danced around the colorburst signal. the pixel rate was just at the colorburst signal, so shifting half a bit tickled it and gave a different set of colors. Not just clever,but fiendeshly clever)
I'm sorry, the fan-made "Star Trek" stuff is terrible, because the actors are terrible. It's as simple as that. They get pretty much everything right, otherwise, but without decent actors, it doesn't matter. I mean, the acting is high-school-level bad.
Err . . . how would this make it any different than Star Trek???
> I wonder what the rest were? Especially the silent ones flying in formation with large panels on their >bottoms flashing bright primary colors that I saw go right over my head at night at perhaps 50 feet off the >ground in the direction of Mt. Rainier,
Just about any market does this; the change of price brings other players in, or causes them to leave.
I wrote code for a simulation in '95 or so that had the simulated merchants applying a quadratic equation to the amount that their sales missed the sell-out quantity. It was trivial to cause markets to clear, on just that one piece of information. (In fact, at one point, due to a coding error, the product was a "bad" rather than a "good"--and it still cleared at a negative price.
The algorithm for Uber would be trivial: once the wait time goes above or below its usual band, the price adjusts by some portion per time unit (e.g., 1%/minute) until the wait time is normal. Or include lagged time periods to damp oscillations.
This is just plain trivial. I, or any other computational economist, could sit around all day kicking out new algorithms for this.
It's really pretty simple: if you sell out to quickly, or can't service all your customers, raise your prices; if you have excess, lower them. Doing it by algorithm is nothing new; the trick to patentability would be to find an algorithm that not only hasn't been done before, but is actually better than the other trivially reachable algorithms.
I drove the demand in that model various ways, whether constant, sine waves, stochastic, saw tooth, and probably others I'm not recalling off-hand. A rather simple genetic algorithm rapidly converged in all cases. Mathematically, that method was probably mathematically equivalent to large classes, possibly all, other second order and lower and lower methods or solutions--and the method rather clearly could be extended to nth order . . . (second order methods tend to be sufficient for most things).
Slashdot Mirror
It only preserves their ads when they're coming from the same server or domain . . . of course, there would then be an arms race between the ad companies and blockers for obfuscation, a la 1980s copy protection . . .
hawk
I am a lawyer, but this is not legal advice. If you want legal advice from me, pay my retainer. If you get your legal advice from slashdot, you deserver whatever happens . . .
Anyway, I've read much of the below. If you are in this situation, and it's not worth paying a lawyer who practices in this area, what you're doing isn't that important.
I don't work in IP at the moment, but there is enough misinformation below to keep several lawyers busy.
There is a reason for hiring a professional programmer instead of doing it yourself. Similarly, there is a reason to hire an actual lawyer rather than misinformation of the internet . . .
hawk, esq.
Earlier than that.
The Mac IIfx had a pair of chips each of which effectively had such a creature. One ran the serial/network ports, and I forget the other.
Had apple sold that chip, combined with the network that ran on the second (unused) pair of standard home wiring, they could have *owned* home automation years ahead . . .
hawk
>Wow, you don't come across people who've even heard of
>Ohio Scientific that often, much less actually used one.
*sigh*
get off my lawn, I suppose. (I just reseeded it anyway)
hawk, suddenly feeling old
Prodos?
PRODOS????
damned newbies . . .
hawk
And I'm kicking myself for not buying the used Apple ][ in a wooden case at the surplus store around the corner, which I've come to realize wasn't a ][ at all . . . :(
hawk, who still has his 128k mac and 1802 wirewrap systems
for hires, rather than reading the same 40 bytes eight times in a row, and feeding to a character generator,eight different sets of 40 bytes were read (of which six set bits, and two danced around the colorburst signal. the pixel rate was just at the colorburst signal, so shifting half a bit tickled it and gave a different set of colors. Not just clever,but fiendeshly clever)
hawk
I'm sorry, the fan-made "Star Trek" stuff is terrible, because the actors are terrible. It's as simple as that. They get pretty much everything right, otherwise, but without decent actors, it doesn't matter. I mean, the acting is high-school-level bad.
Err . . . how would this make it any different than Star Trek???
hawk
I last read one several years ago, which was pretty much a side trip.
I'm not bothering again until his series actually has an end.
So if that ever happens, wake me up . . .
hawk
It's a sensitive clod, you marathoner.
No, wait, that's not right.
In soviet marathon, natalie porter grits you!.
No, that's not it.
hmm.
hawk
If I put an apple in the oven at 340F, I"m not wasting the effort on a computer.
(pass the cinnamon! )
hawk
> I wonder what the rest were? Especially the silent ones flying in formation with large panels on their
>bottoms flashing bright primary colors that I saw go right over my head at night at perhaps 50 feet off the
>ground in the direction of Mt. Rainier,
lysergic acid diethylamide :)
hawk
>And what some people are going to hate is, this approach works in the UK and Australia.
>DUI in Australia carries a mandatory license suspension in most cases.
That is the case in most (all?) US states.
> The only way you get away with just a fine is if you're just over the limit and
>it's your first drink driving infraction in 3 years...
Nevada isn't that lenient . . .
hawk, esq.
The license? How about a reflective Scarlet D on the car, to warn other drivers?
Then again, I want a permanent license suspension on a second DUI conviction, never again to be licensed for anything but a moped.
hawk
If golf, bowling, and baseball are sports . . .
hawk
Buy your coffee already roasted???
*yech*
hawk
>Not everybody's cats are as dumb as mine
Yes they are.
It is a Statistical Mystery as to how 99% of cats are it the bottom quartile of intelligence.
It may have to do with having a brain the size of a walnut . . .
hawk
> I can make an adapter for a Gillette razor if I
> wanted to without breaking any DMCA laws.
When I was in college, Safeway's generic/house brand used the same head.
I bought those, and pulled off the heads to snap on to the better handle . . .
(these were made with nice hard metal, unlike the bic disposables which would cut my face the first time I used them)
hawk
One of my partners bought one of these for the office.
Then we found reusable filter canisters that we could load with better coffee.
Then it broke.
Our staff makes better coffee without having to clean several of those a day.
hawk
Not just obvious, but prior art.
Just about any market does this; the change of price brings other players in, or causes them to leave.
I wrote code for a simulation in '95 or so that had the simulated merchants applying a quadratic equation to the amount that their sales missed the sell-out quantity. It was trivial to cause markets to clear, on just that one piece of information. (In fact, at one point, due to a coding error, the product was a "bad" rather than a "good"--and it still cleared at a negative price.
The algorithm for Uber would be trivial: once the wait time goes above or below its usual band, the price adjusts by some portion per time unit (e.g., 1%/minute) until the wait time is normal. Or include lagged time periods to damp oscillations.
This is just plain trivial. I, or any other computational economist, could sit around all day kicking out new algorithms for this.
It's really pretty simple: if you sell out to quickly, or can't service all your customers, raise your prices; if you have excess, lower them. Doing it by algorithm is nothing new; the trick to patentability would be to find an algorithm that not only hasn't been done before, but is actually better than the other trivially reachable algorithms.
I drove the demand in that model various ways, whether constant, sine waves, stochastic, saw tooth, and probably others I'm not recalling off-hand. A rather simple genetic algorithm rapidly converged in all cases. Mathematically, that method was probably mathematically equivalent to large classes, possibly all, other second order and lower and lower methods or solutions--and the method rather clearly could be extended to nth order . . . (second order methods tend to be sufficient for most things).
hawk
It's not the hyphens.
*ANYTHING* that cuts another vampire/zombie/werewolf book needs to be viewed as a goodthing . . .
hawk
Anyone who refers to Star Trek by a three letter acronym is just plain not the target audience.
(Unless, perhaps, it's TRO, for "The Real One")
Star Trek and its spinoffs have a minimal amount in common.
hawk
>Seriously. I just went through a stack of 5 Seagate
>HDDs, from different customers, with a sledge
>hammer. They all died with S.M.A.R.T. failures.
I've got to admire a firmware that can report
hawk
That's why modern drives use helium instead of protons . . .
That sequel went straight to video. Other than watching him become Darth Squeaky after it got torpedoed, there was really nothing worth watching.
hawk
>Don't forget the original Hack on which Nethack is based - (basically) the same game, but on ASCII terminals (yes, I'm that old).
"tiles" is not nethack . . .
*proper* nethack is ascii only.
It was too easy to escape a two-doored shop in hack . . .
(and to this day, the "graphical" variants on nethack are gaming the ascii-based underpinnings)
hawk