This is second hand information. I don't actually know one way or another (whoo hoo! I'm posting in the right place!), so take this for what it's worth.
From what people have told me, since a couple of years ago, violating the terms of your visa gets you a stay in a holding cell until they sort out your paper work (usually a couple of weeks). They charge you $300 per day to boot. As another poster said, you do NOT want to screw around with your visa in Japan. They are unbelievably unforgiving.
Someone on another forum posted a question about what to do. He had inadvertently allowed his visa to expire (many visas in Japan aren't for the full time you are there. They are good for a short time and renewable). Anyway, it was only overdue by a couple of weeks, but this was a serious problem. You can't even *leave the country* without being picked up by the police if your visa is overdue. Haven't heard from the guy in months now, so I guess things didn't go well:-(
How do you feel about this? What is your outlook on your future, your children's future and the fate of the life around us? Do you feel good about the world you live in? Do you feel good about yourself? Are you at peace?
If you act skillfully to address these feelings, then you will be making good progress towards dealing with your karma. If you decide to accept a poorer existence, that is what you will receive. It is within your power to make a difference to yourself. You merely need to decide what you want.:-) I know it's not as easy as that. But that's OK.
Actually, it's whitelisting actions which are/were categorically illegal at the present time. Whether or not they should have been made illegal in the first place is a separate issue. This isn't a bad precedent; in fact, it's not a precedent at all, really.
Actually, I don't agree. How exactly was unlocking the SIM lock on a phone contravening the DMCA? It's is not, and was never, a copy protection measure. It was not implemented that way and does not function that way. It was intended to be a measure for restricting use.
As far as I can see, this opens up the possibility of legitimizing lawsuits against people who use devices in an "unapproved" way, but who aren't circumventing a copy protect measure.
The recording industry lobbied the government for a levy (not a tax) on recordable media. The government decides what media is covered and what the amount of money is levied. The money is sent to the recording industry which is supposed to distribute it to the recordning artists (I don't believe that part has actually happened yet).
In exchange for the levy, the copyright act specifies that copying an audio musical performance for personal use is not considered infringement. This is *very* different than saying "It has already been paid for". It has not. Copying for person use is *not* infringement whether or not the must has "been paid for".
The court case in question was an injunction to get certain ISPs to release the names of accounts who had been shown to share files over the internet. In the case, the recording industry failed to show that they represented the copyright holders for those files (they had file names, not contents). And they failed to show that the copying was not for personal use. Further they failed to show that making a file available *to others* on the internet actually infringed copyright (since *they* weren't the ones who were copying it).
So, they failed to show any evidence at all that copyright infringement had occurred. And so the judge did not grant the injunction.
Right now the Canadian government is making ammendments to the copyright act. There are no details on what those ammendments will be. But one can guess. Government officials have been meeting with recording industry lobbiests to consult on the issue. The government even paid hundreds of dollars to take lobbiests out for lunch. So far they have refused to meet with pro-user lobbiests.
I've thought a lot about this topic and I have not been able to find a working business model compatible with open source where there has been a significant loss lead. If you have already spent a lot of money (i.e. more than say $20,000) it might be difficult to recoup that expense. Most free software business models have you getting paid for the work that you do, so once you get significantly in the hole it's tough to dig yourself out. Your profit margin on the new work (whatever it is you do) will be too small.
Indeed, I've come to believe that picking a project and then thinking "how can I make money off this" is pretty much a bad way to start a paying free software project. Instead find out what people will pay for and do that. Keep expanding as you find more things that people will pay for. Eventually you might be making enough profit (in absolute sense, not margin) to do some loss leads to find new business. But I definitely wouldn't start out that way.
Strangely, I once worked on a project where my boss liked the idea of open sourcing the code. But he couldn't find a way to make money on it. It was even stranger that customers of the product kept asking to pay him to customize the software, but he wouldn't do it. "We aren't in the custom software development business", he would say.
The moral of the story is, with free software you are at the will of your customer. You do whatever it is they are willing to pay for. You don't do what you want to do and then try to find a way to sell it.
I find the Fermi Paradox interesting because I believe it is actually by far the biggest problem facing science as a whole; science says life should be plentiful and easy and populating the stars ought to be possible at significant fractions of the speed of light, so where is the life that is doing so? It's easy to become numbed to the problem because it seems somewhat abstract, but it's not. Something is fundamentally wrong with at least one of biology, astronomy, cosmology, sociology, and/or the intersections of those disciplines we don't have names for, and we don't know what.
Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mindboggingly big it is. I mean you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.
Life may be doing exactly what you say, but we're looking in the wrong direction. Wouldn't be the first time...
OK. Totally off topic, but perilla is really an awesome herb. It's used very widely in Japanese cuisine (where it's known as shiso). You can use it pretty much anywhere you'd use basil, only it has a kind of curry flavour. Dried with a little bit of salt, it's delicious sprinkled over different food. I also love using this herb in sushi.
CSS allows me to mark up XML as well as HTML. If it doesn't work in IE, historically there has been no recourse. You just get crap on the page. Submitting a bug gets you nothing.
I'm with the parent poster on this one. I want to be able to write sane CSS that most people can use. I haven't played with IE7 much, but I'm not encouraged by the fact that it is still missing table support for CSS. At the moment, I'm forced to use XSLT to transform my XML into XHTML. But this is really suboptimal because I can't let users choose which XSLT transformation to use (leading me to jump through many hoops to get the functionality I want).
"Put us in charge of your freedom because we know what's in your best interest".
No thanks. I'd rather actually have a *say* in the matter. At least with the UN, my country gets a voice. With the US I get what the US thinks is best for me.
As much as I agree with your "need to get verification" stance, it didn't take me more than 30 seconds to find this. And I believe the Times should be considered a reliable news source.
Hmm... I'm not a physicist, but perhaps I can reword things in a way that will help you view things in a different way. Someone has already replied with a similar reply, but I'm not sure it is obvious what they are saying.
If you look at "particles" in an atom as being real physical objects (like raisons in an oatmeal cookie), it's hard to understand that they can be compressed. But you can't directly observe* a "particle" as small as an electron (or even smaller), because they don't behave like matter on a macro scale.
The position of an electron, for instance, isn't determined by directly observing it, but by observing the effect that it has on other particles. As two particles get closer together, they exert a force, repelling each other. The closer they get, the more force they exert. So generally, you can't make two particles overlap. The two partcles don't "hit" each other, they just don't generally exist closer than a certain distance. The distance defines their "position".
As we look closer and closer, we discover that these "particles" aren't really particles in the normal sense at all. They don't have an absolute "position" or boundaries. They actually only have a probability that the particles are in a certain position (high probability to be near the "center" of the gross "position" and lower probability further out. The "particle" actually teleports between these "positions" (and as far as I know, spends 0 time at any one "place"). So it's more like a fuzzy cloud.
So if you can imagine that a particle isn't actually something "physical" the way we normally define "physical", but rather something that repels other things and has an indeterminant position, you might be able to understand a bit more clearly how they can compress to a single point. If the "particle" itself takes up no actual space and it is only the effect on other "particles" that defines it's size, then it's no problem for many particles to occupy the same space.
But you can imagine that the effect of doing that would be very strange indeed. Gravity is trumping the repulsion forces of the particles. So what kind of properties does such an object have? We're just starting to figure that stuff out...
Note, the way I've explained it could be totally wrong (and in fact, our current model could also be totally wrong). I write this only to suggest a different way to look at the situation. Once you've wrapped your brain around the idea that things work differently on the micro scale than the macro scale, you can pursue a better explanation from someone (who didn't drop out of physics...)
* Of course, we can't "directly observe" anything (with the possible exception of our own thoughts). If we "see" something, we are observing the light that bounces off that object. If we "touch" something, we are merely "feeling" the repulsion forces of other particles. And of course each one of these things has to be interpretted by our minds. It is important to understand that in physics, it is not really possible to directly observe objects whether they be micro or macro.
Heh heh... Funny thing is, I don't feel threatened. This is the same crap that has been around since I got my first industry job (~'92). Back then it was "software factories". Hell for all I know, they still call them "software factories". And I admit to not reading TFA. Why bother?
I'll just sit and let those companies who think mixing and matching "components" is going to work, loudly go out of business. If I happen to be one of the casualties in that fallout, so much the better. It's not what I signed up for.
We used to have a word for systems composed with off the self "components". It's called a "Stovepipe system". It ain't gunna work. And it's no fun to be in a company that thinks it is (been there, done that). So worse comes to worst, I'll end up writing free software and working as a waiter with RMS (although how he's going to get a job as a waiter, I'd like to know...)
[...] in around 2015-2020, you could say that we won't need people to write software, because you just explain what you want to a computer and it will write it for you, and there's no reason then to have people working in that job.
Actually I already have this right now. I've got this computer program I call a "compiler". With nothing more complicated than a text editor, I explain to the "compiler" what I want the computer to do. The "compiler" writes the "machine code" that the computer runs.
But, of course I still need people in the loop to decide what the computer should do. I call these people "programmers" for want of a better word. I also sometimes get someone called a "program manager" to decide what the computer should do, but even the "programmers" don't understand him.
Eventually, I'm thinking of moving away from what I call "artificial intellegence" and see if I can find something that is *actually* intellegent...
As much as I'd like to see a legal test of the GPL (not because I think it's invalid, but because coporations will become much more willing to deal with it, once it's been proven in court), this is simply a very, very basic test of copyright law.
The thing about the GPL is that it will never be tested in court. For precisely the reason you give. Either you accept the GPL (meaning you accept it and don't think it's invalid), or you are faced with dealing with the situation under very, very basic copyright law.
The only time it will come up in court is when someone accepts the GPL. It seems to me (not being a lawyer though) that the agreement would be under contract law and subject to the normal conditions for a contract. I suppose it might be possible to suggest that the contract is invalid for some reason (for instance if I was putting a gun to your head and telling you that you must use my library). But I'd be willing to bet that the contract for that person would be invalid. Nobody else would get to use the code...
I probably posted this somewhere before. But anyway, here goes again.
What I want is for my PVR to *record* the commercial, and then when I'm watching the program inform me that it has ads that I can watch. When I feel like looking at the ads, it should give me a list of available ads showing me:
- Sponsor - The shows that the sponsor sponsors - a gross classification for the ad (gambling, liquor, sex, stuff I don't care about) - Ad name
I should be able to filter the ads so that it automatically removes ads that I might object to (tampon ads), and possibly prioritize the ads that I want to see (beer ads).
When I see an ad that has something I want, I should be able to press a button and be taken to a web page for the sponsor (or at the very least give me a web page so that I can write it down and go to it later). I should be able to indicate with my PVR that I like or dislike an ad and have that information sent to the sponsor so that they can taylor their ads to their target market.
If an ad is for another TV program, I should be able to hit a button and have it automatically record that show.
If I really like an ad, I should be able to share it with my friends over the internet.
Why are they trying to force me to watch ads I don't want to watch, and making it difficult to find ads that I *do* want to watch?????? All of this is completely reasonable to implement with today's technology. Where is it?????
I'm not saying the Kyoto protocol is flawed. Quite the contrary. I'm very much in favor of it.
What I'm saying is that Gore is ingenuine by calling himself "carbon neutral", when in fact he has purchased "Carbon Credits" from an *American* company, which (AFAICT) is not obtaining them because others have stopped burning carbon, but because they are funding wind power *in the USA*.
He's not carbon neutral at all. He's just donating money to a wind farm company.
But there is *currently* no cap (as far as I can tell). If I live in the US, I can burn as much carbon as I like. Al Gore isn't carbon neutral because he isn't actually purchasing a portion of the cap. He's just donating money to a good cause.
If the US actually *does* have a cap, then I stand corrected.
This is one of the worst patent applications I've seen. Even though I know that the USPTO is very lax in awarding patents, Iwould still be very surprised to see this go through. In their background section they pretty much admit that almost everything they're claiming has been done before. The only things that they seem to be claiming as novel is the idea of passing the word through a spell checker before you search for it, deconjugating the verb before you search for it, and searching the word based on it's context in a sentence.
I admit I haven't seen software that does the spell check, but that's pretty duh... As for deconjugation (or deinflection), WWWJDIC has done that for ages. Searching for a word based on it's context in a sentence has also been done by many electronic/online dictionaries including http://www.alc.co.jp/
However, I kept reading the patent thinking that maybe they had a novel way of achieving these goals. But they don't even mention their techniques at all! My take on it is that they think each part is obvious to implement and that the conglomeration of techniques should be patentable.
I certainly hope taking 5 obvious (and already implemented) techniques and gluing them together *isn't* patentable. Because that's completely ridiculous any way you look at it (no matter what you think of software patents in general).
Here's my take on buying "carbon credits". They are worthless unless there is a cap on the supply of "carbon credits". This is basic economics. Donating money to an organization that produces wind power does not make you "carbon neutral". What would make you carbon neutral is if having spent that money, someone else was forced not to burn carbon.
Don't get me wrong. Investing in alternative energy generation projects is beneficial. But... If I burn 1000 tons of carbon today and tomorrow I burn 1000 tons of carbon *plus* run a whole wack load of toasters on wind power... well that isn't the same as not burning 1000 tons of carbon.
I think carbon credits are a good idea because they can set a real economic cost on burning carbon. But that cost does not reach market value *unless* you limit the total amount of carbon burnt.
If you could find someone who realized that their idea was worthless without execution; and was capable of breaking down that idea into manageable sized pieces; and could delve into the details of the problem understanding the nuances; and understood which one of these pieces was more important than the others; and understood the problem domain that their idea was in; and could take feedback without flipping out...
I'd take one of these in exachange for any 10 ace programmers that you could throw at me...
Slashdot Mirror
This is second hand information. I don't actually know one way or another (whoo hoo! I'm posting in the right place!), so take this for what it's worth.
:-(
From what people have told me, since a couple of years ago, violating the terms of your visa gets you a stay in a holding cell until they sort out your paper work (usually a couple of weeks). They charge you $300 per day to boot. As another poster said, you do NOT want to screw around with your visa in Japan. They are unbelievably unforgiving.
Someone on another forum posted a question about what to do. He had inadvertently allowed his visa to expire (many visas in Japan aren't for the full time you are there. They are good for a short time and renewable). Anyway, it was only overdue by a couple of weeks, but this was a serious problem. You can't even *leave the country* without being picked up by the police if your visa is overdue. Haven't heard from the guy in months now, so I guess things didn't go well
How do you feel about this? What is your outlook on your future, your children's future and the fate of the life around us? Do you feel good about the world you live in? Do you feel good about yourself? Are you at peace?
:-) I know it's not as easy as that. But that's OK.
If you act skillfully to address these feelings, then you will be making good progress towards dealing with your karma. If you decide to accept a poorer existence, that is what you will receive. It is within your power to make a difference to yourself. You merely need to decide what you want.
Actually, it's whitelisting actions which are/were categorically illegal at the present time. Whether or not they should have been made illegal in the first place is a separate issue. This isn't a bad precedent; in fact, it's not a precedent at all, really.
Actually, I don't agree. How exactly was unlocking the SIM lock on a phone contravening the DMCA? It's is not, and was never, a copy protection measure. It was not implemented that way and does not function that way. It was intended to be a measure for restricting use.
As far as I can see, this opens up the possibility of legitimizing lawsuits against people who use devices in an "unapproved" way, but who aren't circumventing a copy protect measure.
Not entirely true.
The recording industry lobbied the government for a levy (not a tax) on recordable media. The government decides what media is covered and what the amount of money is levied. The money is sent to the recording industry which is supposed to distribute it to the recordning artists (I don't believe that part has actually happened yet).
In exchange for the levy, the copyright act specifies that copying an audio musical performance for personal use is not considered infringement. This is *very* different than saying "It has already been paid for". It has not. Copying for person use is *not* infringement whether or not the must has "been paid for".
The court case in question was an injunction to get certain ISPs to release the names of accounts who had been shown to share files over the internet. In the case, the recording industry failed to show that they represented the copyright holders for those files (they had file names, not contents). And they failed to show that the copying was not for personal use. Further they failed to show that making a file available *to others* on the internet actually infringed copyright (since *they* weren't the ones who were copying it).
So, they failed to show any evidence at all that copyright infringement had occurred. And so the judge did not grant the injunction.
Right now the Canadian government is making ammendments to the copyright act. There are no details on what those ammendments will be. But one can guess. Government officials have been meeting with recording industry lobbiests to consult on the issue. The government even paid hundreds of dollars to take lobbiests out for lunch. So far they have refused to meet with pro-user lobbiests.
I've thought a lot about this topic and I have not been able to find a working business model compatible with open source where there has been a significant loss lead. If you have already spent a lot of money (i.e. more than say $20,000) it might be difficult to recoup that expense. Most free software business models have you getting paid for the work that you do, so once you get significantly in the hole it's tough to dig yourself out. Your profit margin on the new work (whatever it is you do) will be too small.
Indeed, I've come to believe that picking a project and then thinking "how can I make money off this" is pretty much a bad way to start a paying free software project. Instead find out what people will pay for and do that. Keep expanding as you find more things that people will pay for. Eventually you might be making enough profit (in absolute sense, not margin) to do some loss leads to find new business. But I definitely wouldn't start out that way.
Strangely, I once worked on a project where my boss liked the idea of open sourcing the code. But he couldn't find a way to make money on it. It was even stranger that customers of the product kept asking to pay him to customize the software, but he wouldn't do it. "We aren't in the custom software development business", he would say.
The moral of the story is, with free software you are at the will of your customer. You do whatever it is they are willing to pay for. You don't do what you want to do and then try to find a way to sell it.
I find the Fermi Paradox interesting because I believe it is actually by far the biggest problem facing science as a whole; science says life should be plentiful and easy and populating the stars ought to be possible at significant fractions of the speed of light, so where is the life that is doing so? It's easy to become numbed to the problem because it seems somewhat abstract, but it's not. Something is fundamentally wrong with at least one of biology, astronomy, cosmology, sociology, and/or the intersections of those disciplines we don't have names for, and we don't know what.
Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mindboggingly big it is. I mean you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.
Life may be doing exactly what you say, but we're looking in the wrong direction. Wouldn't be the first time...
With apologies to Douglas Adams
OK. Totally off topic, but perilla is really an awesome herb. It's used very widely in Japanese cuisine (where it's known as shiso). You can use it pretty much anywhere you'd use basil, only it has a kind of curry flavour. Dried with a little bit of salt, it's delicious sprinkled over different food. I also love using this herb in sushi.
CSS allows me to mark up XML as well as HTML. If it doesn't work in IE, historically there has been no recourse. You just get crap on the page. Submitting a bug gets you nothing.
I'm with the parent poster on this one. I want to be able to write sane CSS that most people can use. I haven't played with IE7 much, but I'm not encouraged by the fact that it is still missing table support for CSS. At the moment, I'm forced to use XSLT to transform my XML into XHTML. But this is really suboptimal because I can't let users choose which XSLT transformation to use (leading me to jump through many hoops to get the functionality I want).
And this is what is wrong with the US:
"Put us in charge of your freedom because we know what's in your best interest".
No thanks. I'd rather actually have a *say* in the matter. At least with the UN, my country gets a voice. With the US I get what the US thinks is best for me.
I hear you. I'd much rather hire programmers than engineers for a programming job!
Huh???
I can't understand this. IE doesn't even preserve the encoding type on an XSL transform. I can't use it *at all* for my Japanese documents.
And it has unbelievably poor support for CSS. It won't even do tables. Not even in IE 7...
Your comment kind of blows me away...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2033473, 00.html
As much as I agree with your "need to get verification" stance, it didn't take me more than 30 seconds to find this. And I believe the Times should be considered a reliable news source.
Hmm... I'm not a physicist, but perhaps I can reword things in a way that will help you view things in a different way. Someone has already replied with a similar reply, but I'm not sure it is obvious what they are saying.
If you look at "particles" in an atom as being real physical objects (like raisons in an oatmeal cookie), it's hard to understand that they can be compressed. But you can't directly observe* a "particle" as small as an electron (or even smaller), because they don't behave like matter on a macro scale.
The position of an electron, for instance, isn't determined by directly observing it, but by observing the effect that it has on other particles. As two particles get closer together, they exert a force, repelling each other. The closer they get, the more force they exert. So generally, you can't make two particles overlap. The two partcles don't "hit" each other, they just don't generally exist closer than a certain distance. The distance defines their "position".
As we look closer and closer, we discover that these "particles" aren't really particles in the normal sense at all. They don't have an absolute "position" or boundaries. They actually only have a probability that the particles are in a certain position (high probability to be near the "center" of the gross "position" and lower probability further out. The "particle" actually teleports between these "positions" (and as far as I know, spends 0 time at any one "place"). So it's more like a fuzzy cloud.
So if you can imagine that a particle isn't actually something "physical" the way we normally define "physical", but rather something that repels other things and has an indeterminant position, you might be able to understand a bit more clearly how they can compress to a single point. If the "particle" itself takes up no actual space and it is only the effect on other "particles" that defines it's size, then it's no problem for many particles to occupy the same space.
But you can imagine that the effect of doing that would be very strange indeed. Gravity is trumping the repulsion forces of the particles. So what kind of properties does such an object have? We're just starting to figure that stuff out...
Note, the way I've explained it could be totally wrong (and in fact, our current model could also be totally wrong). I write this only to suggest a different way to look at the situation. Once you've wrapped your brain around the idea that things work differently on the micro scale than the macro scale, you can pursue a better explanation from someone (who didn't drop out of physics...)
* Of course, we can't "directly observe" anything (with the possible exception of our own thoughts). If we "see" something, we are observing the light that bounces off that object. If we "touch" something, we are merely "feeling" the repulsion forces of other particles. And of course each one of these things has to be interpretted by our minds. It is important to understand that in physics, it is not really possible to directly observe objects whether they be micro or macro.
Damnit! I *swear* I typed the "if". Must be a communications glitch...
Therefore Chewbacca is from Endor, you must acquit.
Heh heh... Funny thing is, I don't feel threatened. This is the same crap that has been around since I got my first industry job (~'92). Back then it was "software factories". Hell for all I know, they still call them "software factories". And I admit to not reading TFA. Why bother?
I'll just sit and let those companies who think mixing and matching "components" is going to work, loudly go out of business. If I happen to be one of the casualties in that fallout, so much the better. It's not what I signed up for.
We used to have a word for systems composed with off the self "components". It's called a "Stovepipe system". It ain't gunna work. And it's no fun to be in a company that thinks it is (been there, done that). So worse comes to worst, I'll end up writing free software and working as a waiter with RMS (although how he's going to get a job as a waiter, I'd like to know...)
Life's too short to work for morons...
Actually I already have this right now. I've got this computer program I call a "compiler". With nothing more complicated than a text editor, I explain to the "compiler" what I want the computer to do. The "compiler" writes the "machine code" that the computer runs.
But, of course I still need people in the loop to decide what the computer should do. I call these people "programmers" for want of a better word. I also sometimes get someone called a "program manager" to decide what the computer should do, but even the "programmers" don't understand him.
Eventually, I'm thinking of moving away from what I call "artificial intellegence" and see if I can find something that is *actually* intellegent...
As much as I'd like to see a legal test of the GPL (not because I think it's invalid, but because coporations will become much more willing to deal with it, once it's been proven in court), this is simply a very, very basic test of copyright law.
The thing about the GPL is that it will never be tested in court. For precisely the reason you give. Either you accept the GPL (meaning you accept it and don't think it's invalid), or you are faced with dealing with the situation under very, very basic copyright law.
The only time it will come up in court is when someone accepts the GPL. It seems to me (not being a lawyer though) that the agreement would be under contract law and subject to the normal conditions for a contract. I suppose it might be possible to suggest that the contract is invalid for some reason (for instance if I was putting a gun to your head and telling you that you must use my library). But I'd be willing to bet that the contract for that person would be invalid. Nobody else would get to use the code...
Didn't someone mention a Wikipedia plugin?
I probably posted this somewhere before. But anyway, here goes again.
What I want is for my PVR to *record* the commercial, and then when I'm watching the program inform me that it has ads that I can watch. When I feel like looking at the ads, it should give me a list of available ads showing me:
- Sponsor
- The shows that the sponsor sponsors
- a gross classification for the ad (gambling, liquor, sex, stuff I don't care about)
- Ad name
I should be able to filter the ads so that it automatically removes ads that I might object to (tampon ads), and possibly prioritize the ads that I want to see (beer ads).
When I see an ad that has something I want, I should be able to press a button and be taken to a web page for the sponsor (or at the very least give me a web page so that I can write it down and go to it later). I should be able to indicate with my PVR that I like or dislike an ad and have that information sent to the sponsor so that they can taylor their ads to their target market.
If an ad is for another TV program, I should be able to hit a button and have it automatically record that show.
If I really like an ad, I should be able to share it with my friends over the internet.
Why are they trying to force me to watch ads I don't want to watch, and making it difficult to find ads that I *do* want to watch?????? All of this is completely reasonable to implement with today's technology. Where is it?????
I'm not saying the Kyoto protocol is flawed. Quite the contrary. I'm very much in favor of it.
What I'm saying is that Gore is ingenuine by calling himself "carbon neutral", when in fact he has purchased "Carbon Credits" from an *American* company, which (AFAICT) is not obtaining them because others have stopped burning carbon, but because they are funding wind power *in the USA*.
He's not carbon neutral at all. He's just donating money to a wind farm company.
But there is *currently* no cap (as far as I can tell). If I live in the US, I can burn as much carbon as I like. Al Gore isn't carbon neutral because he isn't actually purchasing a portion of the cap. He's just donating money to a good cause.
If the US actually *does* have a cap, then I stand corrected.
This is one of the worst patent applications I've seen. Even though I know that the USPTO is very lax in awarding patents, Iwould still be very surprised to see this go through. In their background section they pretty much admit that almost everything they're claiming has been done before. The only things that they seem to be claiming as novel is the idea of passing the word through a spell checker before you search for it, deconjugating the verb before you search for it, and searching the word based on it's context in a sentence.
I admit I haven't seen software that does the spell check, but that's pretty duh... As for deconjugation (or deinflection), WWWJDIC has done that for ages. Searching for a word based on it's context in a sentence has also been done by many electronic/online dictionaries including http://www.alc.co.jp/
However, I kept reading the patent thinking that maybe they had a novel way of achieving these goals. But they don't even mention their techniques at all! My take on it is that they think each part is obvious to implement and that the conglomeration of techniques should be patentable.
I certainly hope taking 5 obvious (and already implemented) techniques and gluing them together *isn't* patentable. Because that's completely ridiculous any way you look at it (no matter what you think of software patents in general).
Here's my take on buying "carbon credits". They are worthless unless there is a cap on the supply of "carbon credits". This is basic economics. Donating money to an organization that produces wind power does not make you "carbon neutral". What would make you carbon neutral is if having spent that money, someone else was forced not to burn carbon.
Don't get me wrong. Investing in alternative energy generation projects is beneficial. But... If I burn 1000 tons of carbon today and tomorrow I burn 1000 tons of carbon *plus* run a whole wack load of toasters on wind power... well that isn't the same as not burning 1000 tons of carbon.
I think carbon credits are a good idea because they can set a real economic cost on burning carbon. But that cost does not reach market value *unless* you limit the total amount of carbon burnt.
But...
If you could find someone who realized that their idea was worthless without execution; and was capable of breaking down that idea into manageable sized pieces; and could delve into the details of the problem understanding the nuances; and understood which one of these pieces was more important than the others; and understood the problem domain that their idea was in; and could take feedback without flipping out...
I'd take one of these in exachange for any 10 ace programmers that you could throw at me...