You can make your employees sign contracts that forbid them from revealing trade secrets, and those contracts are enforceable.
You could forbid your employees from wearing pants by contract and it would be enforceable (as long as they sign it). The minute they wear pants you could sue for breach of contract.
I left out trademarks because they are pretty much orthogonal to the software patent problem.
Correct. The best tool I've found to understand the relationships between the different types of "intellectual property" is this IP map by law professor Tom Bell.
The government grants three primary forms of protection for IP: trade secrets, copyrights and patents.
Close, but not quite. Trade secrets are not granted by the government. The one you missed is the trademark.
The copyright (at least before 1976), patent, and trademark require you to register with the government to be granted. Trade secrets are just that, secrets. About the only protection they offer is that in court proceedings, if you can convince the judge a piece of your evidence is a trade secret, it won't be entered into the court records.
I might be misinformed, but, didn't he just shut down the federal government funding of resaerch on embryonic stem cells and made it illegal to produce new lines completely?
The President's ability to make anything illegal is extremely limited. He just runs the executive branch of the federal government. New laws can only be created by the Congress, and are either signed or vetoed by the President. Congress can override his veto with a 2/3 majority vote. Some policies are delegated to the executive branch to regulate.
If you are really sure that it is still legal to produce embryonic stem cells and have some links to confirm it, please post them (no sarcasm intended). Because then most swedish scientific news has got the meaning of the US laws wrong.:)
Here's the new stem cell policy, straight from the horse's mouth. Most media have an agenda & report only the news they want to be made known & in a manner that suits their agenda. That's why I take anything the mainstream media has to say with a grain of salt.
I've seen a demo of their software in action. An entire CD-ROM (or more) of overlapping images (aerial photography in this case) that were geographically positioned could be viewed using their software. You could pan & zoom in near real time, and this was about 4 years ago! Their software uses wavelet compression.
The software was only on Windows at the time, but according to their download page they have both a browser plug-in and standalone viewer for Linux.
Bush banned the development of new embryonic stem cells ~6 months ago.
No, all he did was block them from federal government funding. You could still use private funds, or even state or local government funds to start a new line. However, state & local governments don't spend much, if anything, on scientific research.
There are plenty of billionaires that could fund the research though, but none that are serious about fighting disease. Bill Gates only donates money when Microsoft is getting bad press. If Ted Turner, Warren Buffet, or he were diagnosed with some terminal disease, all of a sudden there would be more funds than scientists knew what to do with.
If a computer is compromised via a known security exploit a set length of time after a patch is released, the computer's owner forfeits the right to sue for damages.
It's certainly not suprising to me this discovory occured in Europe. It's unfortunate the position the United States has taken towards stem cell research. It's pretty much closed to door and made the possibility of discoveries such as this very unlikely here in the U.S.
The new stem cell policy wouldn't have affected this research at all since it only applies to embryonic stem cells. The bubble boys were cured with their own stem cells.
Besides, the policy only limits government funding. Anyone could start new stem cell lines with private funds.
The laws don't restrict the research itself, they restict the number of cell lines available for research.
They don't actually restrict the number of stem cell lines, they merely limit government funding to the existing lines. Anyone could start new lines with private funding.
Also, the policy only refers to embryonic stem cells. The bubble boys were cured with their own stem cells.
We all assume we are being screwed when it comes to buying a CD for $16.95. Is this because we can buy a stack of 50 blank CD-R's for about the same price?
I don't assume, I know we're being screwed. Not because of the price of CD-Rs, I don't rip or copy my CDs or make compilations out of them.
Besides the cost of the media there are other costs involved in making CD's. Recording studio time, editing, cover art, packaging costs, marketing costs, distribution costs, and I am sure the list goes on.
Sure there are other costs, but of all the ones you listed above, packaging and distribution are the only ones record companies pay for. The rest comes out of the royalties that would get paid to the artist. The artist doesn't see a cent until all the up-front costs are recouped. For a pretty good explanation of how this works, see this article by Steve Albini, a producer you may have heard of.
Re:Its about -concentration- of wealth
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Globalism Post 9/11
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· Score: 3, Informative
For example, compare the democratic freedoms an Israeli arab has vs. an Iranian Jew (if any are left).
Or compare the democratic freedoms any Iranian has compared to an Israeli arab.
Iran is a rather strange case. The elected government is more moderate than ever, but their (non-elected) Council of Elders has de-facto veto rights over any policies the government changes. The best hope there is that the Council is composed of 12 Mullahs in their 70s and older. They won't be around forever.
There is a huge difference between a "partial" democracy and a real democracy.
Some degree of democracy does not a democracy make.
Then by that measure, there are no democracies. A pure democracy has never been tried (on a whole country scale at least). It's for good reason too: i.e. civil rights in the US couldn't happen in a pure democracy.
Actually, Turkey is an exception. Funny... they are an Israeli ally.
Turkey is in some respects less of a democracy than many other Arab countries. The Kurds in western Turkey are treated pretty bad, many are political prisoners.
I can't bring up any specific ROTC programs, but I know that there is at least one that requires you to give back at least 2x the amount of time you're in school.
There are no ROTC programs that have a 2x yr commitment by themself. However, if you become a pilot you have a 10 yr commitment after training, & navigators have an 8 yr commitment after training.
But there are different ways to get into those 3 different commissioning programs. I know because I'm active duty enlisted and they are constantly advertising them
Right, just remember that they all funnel through the 3 programs. I was an active duty SSgt, now I'm in ROTC, through the ASCP.
If I had my way, all officers would have to have a minimum amount of time (say, a year or two) as enlisted before their commission starts. But that's just me.
I definitely agree! While many non-prior-enlisted officers were good, I believe on average the prior-enlisted ones make better officers. After going through ROTC field training and seeing what a joke it is, and how bad of a program ROTC is, they should at least send every officer candidate through basic training.
In fact has anyone ever actually seeing J.K. in real life?
Yes, I really saw him in person. He came to the University of Minnesota to help teach a short course on New Media in the Journalism dept. I went to a separate lecture he gave (along with a dozen or so regular slashdotters). He spouted his typical technobabble, which seemed to impress most of those in attendance. The old media professors seem to think he speaks for a whole new generation of young hackers & geeks or something. He did take the time afterwards to talk to us (the/.ers), seemed like a nice guy. I believe he's sincere, but a little caught up being a celebrity.
the Al Saud family - a bunch of thugs enthroned by the British as the sun set on their empire in the Persian/Arabian region.
Actually, the Saudis took power without British help. Europeans never controlled the interior of the Arabian Peninsula, only the coastal areas like Kuwait, Bahrain, the Emirates, Oman, & Yemen. Sharif Husayn of Hijaz (area from Mecca to Medina, holy to Muslims) made a deal with the British to be setup as ruler when the Ottoman Empire was dismantled after WW I. They broke their end of the bargain, then the original King Saud united the various tribes from the peninsula's interior and ousted Husayn.
At this point, the rampant corruption, graft, and mishandling of the country has gotten nearly everyone pissed off at them, and it is only through kissing the right asses at the Mosques are they even able to keep a grip on the reigns of power.
Yes, the Saudi royal family (all 7000+ of them) are mostly corrupt, some even funding the Islamic fundamentalsim responsible for Al Qaeda & friends. But the way they deal with discontent isn't by kissing asses. They control the population through bribes and draconian laws that are almost as bad as the Taliban.
There, the rich are rich beyond any conceivable means, while to poor are pathetically poor. There is no middle class. If you are born poor, you will die poor.
The only poor people in Saudi Arabia are either foreigners or choose to be poor (by our standards at least), like the Bedouins. Native Saudis get free education, health care, and cushy, white collar jobs.
When our troops were over there to prevent Saddam from rolling on the Al Saud's, the royals there basically hooked soldiers up with their summer mansions for R&R.
The mansions your co-worker described are a little exaggerated. They were war stories, remember? The accomodations at some of the bases were really nice. Called villas, they were 5 bedroom block houses with great air conditioning & a rooftop patio. The Saudis originally built them for the Bedouins, who don't want to give up their nomadic lifestyle, so the houses sat empty.
What about jobs? Guess what, the Al Saud family - partly to keep the poor poor - hire all their labour from outside of the country.
They have to hire outside labor. No native Saudis are willing to do any manual labor. They're too used to being taken care of by the royals.
You mean Syquest, the maker of the SparQ and other removable storage. Iomega bought their intellectual property shortly after they went bankrupt. Mostly so nobody could use the technology to start a potential competitor IMHO. I hope they at least incorporate some of Syquest's technology into their products, as it was better than Iomega's at the time. I eventually caved in and bought a Zip drive, since most of my friends and the computers at work and school all had Zip drives.
In the Air Foce, the service commitment for most programs is twice the amount of time the USAF paid for your education.
No, the commitment is equal to the number of years they paid for, but the minimum is 4. Some majors can get 5 years paid for.
There are literally dozens ways to become an officer, partly because the services are really hurting for members right now.
No, besides doctors, lawyers, & chaplains (direct commissions with 2 or 4 weeks of training), there are exactly 3 ways to get commissioned into the Air Force: the Academy, ROTC, & OTS.
Isn't Windows' C2 certification only valid if it is NOT connected to a network?
The 1st OS they certified, NT 3.5, was only valid without a floppy drive and any kind of networking hardware. The funny thing is that NT 4 is much more unstable than NT 3.5 was.
Not quite, it seems this program is just a scholarship to pay for a Master's degree with two years of obligated employment. ROTC is a program to commission officers in the military (mostly undergrads).
ROTC includes classes, leadership laboratories, and summer field training during school. The service commitment time is usually 4 years (or 5 years if they pay for that many). Also, not all ROTC cadets get scholarships, some in the program just pay their own way through school but still get commissioned.
Granted, the US government runs mainly under Windows systems
No they don't. Maybe for desktops, some workstations, a few file servers, and the occasional public web server, but the US govt uses lots of different systems. There are still many systems running on old proprietary mainframes, plenty of Novell (even as old as version 3) networks, and a whole lot of Unix systems.
Also, all classified systems run only on Trusted operating systems and software, which meet criteria for a specific level in the Orange Book from the NSA. According to this, the latest version of Windows that was certified is NT 4.0 with SP 6a and the C2 update, in Nov 1999.
Like most software companies, Microsoft has worked hard to make its Windows system as compact as possible, Enderle said. By intertwining code to minimize overlap, he said, Microsoft makes a product that saves valuable disk space but becomes difficult to segregate.
Is this guy talking about the same Windows everyone else in the world knows? The installed size has gone up with every release, up to 1 GB in XP. I don't know what this guy is smoking, but I want some.
The real issue on the low end is how few resources are required to run Unix or Windows. Neither can be ported to the most resource-starved embedded systems.
Linux will run happily on a 386 with 4 MB. How much more resource starved can you get?
Since the Speaker (who decides where bills go) is Republican and is known to be tightly linked with Hollywood, this seems a very real possibility.
First, the Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert (R-IL), has absolutely nothing to do with what bills get discussed in the Senate!
Second, maybe you should do a little research before you make accusations. This list of the top 20 industries that contributed to Hastert doesn't even include the entertainment industry. Compare that to the contributor list of the CBDTPA's author, Sen Hollings (D-SC), which lists TV/Movies/Music as the 2nd highest.
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That has to be the funniest bill I've ever read. The Kentucky legislature has quite a sense of humor!
Correct. The best tool I've found to understand the relationships between the different types of "intellectual property" is this IP map by law professor Tom Bell.
The copyright (at least before 1976), patent, and trademark require you to register with the government to be granted. Trade secrets are just that, secrets. About the only protection they offer is that in court proceedings, if you can convince the judge a piece of your evidence is a trade secret, it won't be entered into the court records.
Here's the new stem cell policy, straight from the horse's mouth. Most media have an agenda & report only the news they want to be made known & in a manner that suits their agenda. That's why I take anything the mainstream media has to say with a grain of salt.
I've seen a demo of their software in action. An entire CD-ROM (or more) of overlapping images (aerial photography in this case) that were geographically positioned could be viewed using their software. You could pan & zoom in near real time, and this was about 4 years ago! Their software uses wavelet compression.
The software was only on Windows at the time, but according to their download page they have both a browser plug-in and standalone viewer for Linux.
There are plenty of billionaires that could fund the research though, but none that are serious about fighting disease. Bill Gates only donates money when Microsoft is getting bad press. If Ted Turner, Warren Buffet, or he were diagnosed with some terminal disease, all of a sudden there would be more funds than scientists knew what to do with.
I agree, and I think I have a better idea:
If a computer is compromised via a known security exploit a set length of time after a patch is released, the computer's owner forfeits the right to sue for damages.
Besides, the policy only limits government funding. Anyone could start new stem cell lines with private funds.
Also, the policy only refers to embryonic stem cells. The bubble boys were cured with their own stem cells.
Sure there are other costs, but of all the ones you listed above, packaging and distribution are the only ones record companies pay for. The rest comes out of the royalties that would get paid to the artist. The artist doesn't see a cent until all the up-front costs are recouped. For a pretty good explanation of how this works, see this article by Steve Albini, a producer you may have heard of.
Then by that measure, there are no democracies. A pure democracy has never been tried (on a whole country scale at least). It's for good reason too: i.e. civil rights in the US couldn't happen in a pure democracy.
Turkey is in some respects less of a democracy than many other Arab countries. The Kurds in western Turkey are treated pretty bad, many are political prisoners.
Right, just remember that they all funnel through the 3 programs. I was an active duty SSgt, now I'm in ROTC, through the ASCP.
I definitely agree! While many non-prior-enlisted officers were good, I believe on average the prior-enlisted ones make better officers. After going through ROTC field training and seeing what a joke it is, and how bad of a program ROTC is, they should at least send every officer candidate through basic training.
A quick check in the CIA World Factbook found these countries (besides Israel) as at least partial democracies:
Egypt
Iran
Jordan
Kuwait
Lebanon
Oman
Syria
Turkey
United Arab Emirates
Yemen
Yes, the Saudi royal family (all 7000+ of them) are mostly corrupt, some even funding the Islamic fundamentalsim responsible for Al Qaeda & friends. But the way they deal with discontent isn't by kissing asses. They control the population through bribes and draconian laws that are almost as bad as the Taliban.
The only poor people in Saudi Arabia are either foreigners or choose to be poor (by our standards at least), like the Bedouins. Native Saudis get free education, health care, and cushy, white collar jobs.
The mansions your co-worker described are a little exaggerated. They were war stories, remember? The accomodations at some of the bases were really nice. Called villas, they were 5 bedroom block houses with great air conditioning & a rooftop patio. The Saudis originally built them for the Bedouins, who don't want to give up their nomadic lifestyle, so the houses sat empty.
They have to hire outside labor. No native Saudis are willing to do any manual labor. They're too used to being taken care of by the royals.
And don't forget the Ping of Death
No, besides doctors, lawyers, & chaplains (direct commissions with 2 or 4 weeks of training), there are exactly 3 ways to get commissioned into the Air Force: the Academy, ROTC, & OTS.
Not quite, it seems this program is just a scholarship to pay for a Master's degree with two years of obligated employment. ROTC is a program to commission officers in the military (mostly undergrads).
ROTC includes classes, leadership laboratories, and summer field training during school. The service commitment time is usually 4 years (or 5 years if they pay for that many). Also, not all ROTC cadets get scholarships, some in the program just pay their own way through school but still get commissioned.
Also, all classified systems run only on Trusted operating systems and software, which meet criteria for a specific level in the Orange Book from the NSA. According to this, the latest version of Windows that was certified is NT 4.0 with SP 6a and the C2 update, in Nov 1999.
Second, maybe you should do a little research before you make accusations. This list of the top 20 industries that contributed to Hastert doesn't even include the entertainment industry. Compare that to the contributor list of the CBDTPA's author, Sen Hollings (D-SC), which lists TV/Movies/Music as the 2nd highest.