not to be a killjoy, but has it occurred to anyone that ashcroft is resigning as attorney general so as to prepare himself for a nomination to the supreme court?
isn't that just the same as taking an "A" size sheet and folding it in half to make two A1 sheets, folding an A1 sheet in half to make two A2 sheets, folding an A2 sheet in half to make 2 A3 sheets, folding an A3 sheet in half to make two A4 sheets, and so one?
they can't short the stock at the same time as they buy it. the hedge strategy for baystar will be to buy put options. for a small fee, they can recover almost all the $50 million they're investing.
did you know that the pidgeon (actually Columba livia or rock dove) is the only bird in the world that can drink liquids by using suction? all others have to take a beakful of liquid and then tilt their heads back to dring.
in their native, non-urban, environment, columba livia eats seeds by grabbing the top of a stalk of grass with its beak, shaking the stalk, and then picking up the seeds that fall. a practice that is equally effective with pizza crusts.
the main criticism audiophiles have for technical measurements is not over their accuracy or reproducability. rather its because they are generally insufficient for describing how an audio component will perform.
take the power measurements. you know, the ones that go "100 watts rms +- 3 dB with no more than.02% THD". this specification was created by the Federal Trade Commission to prevent dishonest amplifier manufacturers from quoting higher power output than their amplifiers were capable of generating. harmonic distortion is inaccuracies in the amplitude of the peaks and troughs of sound waves. it needs to be quoted in a power rating because when an amplifier is driven into clipping, the peaks of the sound waves are clipped (hence the term "clipping").
however, harmonic distortion is not the most important form of distortion. it is relatively inaudible even at levels as high as 1%. but because it must be quoted with every power output rating, it receives much more attention than it deserves even to the point of prompting electronics manufacturers to employ circuit designs that minimize THD at the expense of sound quality.
audio equipment testors like to test for THD because it's a popular measurement with readers and manufacturers and because it's easy to measure. but as a measure of audio quality it's rather unimportant. more important is intermodulation distortion, but it's hard to test.
not that high end audio doesn't have it's own problems. there are way to many anal retentive audiophiles who have to have multiple speaker cables and the latest electronic snake oil device. but its also true that while technical tests are necessary for properly evaluating a component, they're also insufficient. there are just too many variables for a finite set of technical tests to fully define how well an audio component will sound. there's even a legitimate scientific theory about this. it's called chaos theory.
to reiterate a statement i made in a previous slashdot story (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=75246&cid=673 3419). sco doesn't want to identify the linux code they claim is infringing. they would rather make users pay them a license fee instead.
sco's argument reminds me of the story in the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy where the publishers of the hitchhiker's guide copied some facts off the back of a box of cereal and then sent a copy of the hitchhiker's guide back in time to sue the cereal company for copyright infringement.
it seems that sco copied some open source code into unixware and then, discovering that linux uses the same code, accuses linux of infringing on sco.
sco wants to collect royalties or at least successfully sue users for infringement (imagined or real). to that effect, sco doesn't want the linux community to remove offending code from linux since that would invalidate their case.
in other words, sco doesn't want the linux community to remove the infringing code. sco wants money and will block attempts to remove infringing code to insure that they get the cash.
just think, a relatively small group of fans can hack the tivo rating system by organizing a tv watch.
it works like this; fans of a particular show, organized via web site or bulletin board, all arrange to set their tivos up to repeat their favorite show all weekend long. even if the fans are at the beach or on vacation, the tivos dutifully play the programs with commercials intact giving the show a skewed rating.
even if the show in question has a low rating, it'll show up as being efficient at getting commercials viewed. in fact, i'd say the scheme would work even better on a low rated show since a larger proportion of its fans could be organized this way.
Re:That would be a natural ceiling
on
42-Volt Autos
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
the speed of sound used to be thought of as a natural ceiling.
in your last paragraph you made one mistake about patents.
patents are not about who files first. they are about who comes up with an idea first. so if you patent a track-adhesion system, patent it, and then try to sell it to tyco, then tyco doesn't have to pay if they can prove that they already had the idea before you. tyco's proof would be prior art - proof that the idea was published before you invented it.
the problem with this is that it reserves the right to patent to well funded product developers.
let's say someone invents something and files for the patent. if they have trouble getting funding to develop the patent into a working product then using your reasoning above, they would lose the right to their invention. the only way to preserve the rights of the small time inventor would be to create all kinds of messy patent regulations vis a vis intent - what was the purpose of the inventor and did the inventor make a good faith effort to develop the patent into a working invention?
a possible real world example would be a university researcher inventing a new drug, but who lacked the resources to synthesize and test the drug. if the pharmaceutical companies held off making a deal for a proscribed time, they could swoop in a make the drug without compensating the inventor anything. or they could simply ofer the inventor a crummy deal.
also remember that the purpose of the patent system is to encourage inventors to come up with new ideas and then publish them. without a patent system, every new invention would be treated as a trade secret. for example, you'd buy a television or computer with sticker on the box saying (or trying to say) that opening the box is a violation of the manufacturer's trade secret.
properly employed, patents eliminate the requirement to reverse engineer products because the complete schematics of how the products work are already published in the government's patent database. one of the problems with the patent system is that the courts screwed it up by saying only a lawyer is qualified to say whether a patent has been infringed. this has put published active patents off limits to the engineers who would actually use them.
imagine, for example, if the wright brothers had not been allowed to patent the airplane. they would have never published the wing warping technique, leaving it to other inventors to rediscover it independently. whenever they sold an airplane to someone, they would have to force a contract on the customer forbidding the customer from reverse engineering the machine.
interstingly, all these things are parts of eulas because software developers are not required to publish copyrighted software code. copyrighted code is essentially treated as if it were a trade secret.
that would certainly spell doom for many classical titles. how is the itms supposed to sell a mahler or bruckner symphony where each movement is 15 to 20 minutes long.
were the early big box macs (mac ii, iix, iifx, iicx/ci, etc) equally hard to get into?
was it possible that the compact macs were made hard to get into for liability reasons? opening the case exposed the crt's dangerous high voltage circuits.
the gateway plasma monitor is actually a lower resolution at 852 x 480. also i've seen the gateway plasma monitor and it is far from being the best in its class. for a few hundred more you can get a panasonic edtv plasma, currently the best 42" plasma on the market.
the scary thing about this is that it may make it impossible to add additional code to a piece of open source software without first getting a lawyer's permission.
think about it. say sco loses its case. that will mean every big developer that runs a gnu project will now have to have a team of lawyers look over the gnu code before it gets released, just to make sure noe of the developer's closed source or private code didn't leak into it somehow.
a kilobuck is expensive for a vacuum, but reasonable for an electrolux product. as i understand it, that company doesn't bat an eylash at charging in the kilobuck range for an ordinary vacuum cleaner.
on the positive side, their vacuums are close to bulletproof and typically last for decades.
lifetime warranties do work. totes umbrellas have a lifetime warranty. i had one that broke in half, sent it in with $3 for shipping and got a brand new replacement. total cost was less than buying a really crappy umbrella from a street vendor.
i've looked over this entire forum and not one person suggested the use of lottery technology.
you know - thats the slip of paper about the size of a dollar bill and filled in with dark ink or pencil mark. everybody knows how to fill out those lottery slips. even the old ladies with bad eyesight manage to fill out $10 or $20 worth of these things a week.
when the lottery slip is run through the reader, a slip of paper is printed out giving the voter a complete run down of who he or she voted for, mirrored in machine readable form. the voter can even keep the slip they originally filled out as a private permanent record of who he or she voted for. the machinery for this is perfected, reliable, and many states already have business relationships with the companies that manufature the gear.
plus there are all kinds of tools that can make voting more fun. at the voter's option, the voting machine can be asked to generate a random list of candidates. and voters can be randomly selected to win a grand prize. imagine how that would improve voter turnout.
Slashdot Mirror
this story reminds me of the seinfeld episode where kramer uses the bathroom in an office building and then just starts working for the company.
v let/showid-112/epid-2377/
http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/GuidePageSer
not to be a killjoy, but has it occurred to anyone that ashcroft is resigning as attorney general so as to prepare himself for a nomination to the supreme court?
isn't that just the same as taking an "A" size sheet and folding it in half to make two A1 sheets, folding an A1 sheet in half to make two A2 sheets, folding an A2 sheet in half to make 2 A3 sheets, folding an A3 sheet in half to make two A4 sheets, and so one?
they can't short the stock at the same time as they buy it. the hedge strategy for baystar will be to buy put options. for a small fee, they can recover almost all the $50 million they're investing.
did you know that the pidgeon (actually Columba livia or rock dove) is the only bird in the world that can drink liquids by using suction? all others have to take a beakful of liquid and then tilt their heads back to dring.
in their native, non-urban, environment, columba livia eats seeds by grabbing the top of a stalk of grass with its beak, shaking the stalk, and then picking up the seeds that fall. a practice that is equally effective with pizza crusts.
the main criticism audiophiles have for technical measurements is not over their accuracy or reproducability. rather its because they are generally insufficient for describing how an audio component will perform.
.02% THD". this specification was created by the Federal Trade Commission to prevent dishonest amplifier manufacturers from quoting higher power output than their amplifiers were capable of generating. harmonic distortion is inaccuracies in the amplitude of the peaks and troughs of sound waves. it needs to be quoted in a power rating because when an amplifier is driven into clipping, the peaks of the sound waves are clipped (hence the term "clipping").
take the power measurements. you know, the ones that go "100 watts rms +- 3 dB with no more than
however, harmonic distortion is not the most important form of distortion. it is relatively inaudible even at levels as high as 1%. but because it must be quoted with every power output rating, it receives much more attention than it deserves even to the point of prompting electronics manufacturers to employ circuit designs that minimize THD at the expense of sound quality.
audio equipment testors like to test for THD because it's a popular measurement with readers and manufacturers and because it's easy to measure. but as a measure of audio quality it's rather unimportant. more important is intermodulation distortion, but it's hard to test.
not that high end audio doesn't have it's own problems. there are way to many anal retentive audiophiles who have to have multiple speaker cables and the latest electronic snake oil device. but its also true that while technical tests are necessary for properly evaluating a component, they're also insufficient. there are just too many variables for a finite set of technical tests to fully define how well an audio component will sound. there's even a legitimate scientific theory about this. it's called chaos theory.
to reiterate a statement i made in a previous slashdot story (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=75246&cid=673 3419). sco doesn't want to identify the linux code they claim is infringing. they would rather make users pay them a license fee instead.
sco's argument reminds me of the story in the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy where the publishers of the hitchhiker's guide copied some facts off the back of a box of cereal and then sent a copy of the hitchhiker's guide back in time to sue the cereal company for copyright infringement.
it seems that sco copied some open source code into unixware and then, discovering that linux uses the same code, accuses linux of infringing on sco.
sco wants to collect royalties or at least successfully sue users for infringement (imagined or real). to that effect, sco doesn't want the linux community to remove offending code from linux since that would invalidate their case.
in other words, sco doesn't want the linux community to remove the infringing code. sco wants money and will block attempts to remove infringing code to insure that they get the cash.
hey, that's a great idea. let's all drive powerbooks and do our computing on pintos.
sorry about that, but i just couldn't resist.
just think, a relatively small group of fans can hack the tivo rating system by organizing a tv watch.
it works like this; fans of a particular show, organized via web site or bulletin board, all arrange to set their tivos up to repeat their favorite show all weekend long. even if the fans are at the beach or on vacation, the tivos dutifully play the programs with commercials intact giving the show a skewed rating.
even if the show in question has a low rating, it'll show up as being efficient at getting commercials viewed. in fact, i'd say the scheme would work even better on a low rated show since a larger proportion of its fans could be organized this way.
the speed of sound used to be thought of as a natural ceiling.
in your last paragraph you made one mistake about patents.
patents are not about who files first. they are about who comes up with an idea first. so if you patent a track-adhesion system, patent it, and then try to sell it to tyco, then tyco doesn't have to pay if they can prove that they already had the idea before you. tyco's proof would be prior art - proof that the idea was published before you invented it.
the problem with this is that it reserves the right to patent to well funded product developers.
let's say someone invents something and files for the patent. if they have trouble getting funding to develop the patent into a working product then using your reasoning above, they would lose the right to their invention. the only way to preserve the rights of the small time inventor would be to create all kinds of messy patent regulations vis a vis intent - what was the purpose of the inventor and did the inventor make a good faith effort to develop the patent into a working invention?
a possible real world example would be a university researcher inventing a new drug, but who lacked the resources to synthesize and test the drug. if the pharmaceutical companies held off making a deal for a proscribed time, they could swoop in a make the drug without compensating the inventor anything. or they could simply ofer the inventor a crummy deal.
also remember that the purpose of the patent system is to encourage inventors to come up with new ideas and then publish them. without a patent system, every new invention would be treated as a trade secret. for example, you'd buy a television or computer with sticker on the box saying (or trying to say) that opening the box is a violation of the manufacturer's trade secret.
properly employed, patents eliminate the requirement to reverse engineer products because the complete schematics of how the products work are already published in the government's patent database. one of the problems with the patent system is that the courts screwed it up by saying only a lawyer is qualified to say whether a patent has been infringed. this has put published active patents off limits to the engineers who would actually use them.
imagine, for example, if the wright brothers had not been allowed to patent the airplane. they would have never published the wing warping technique, leaving it to other inventors to rediscover it independently. whenever they sold an airplane to someone, they would have to force a contract on the customer forbidding the customer from reverse engineering the machine.
interstingly, all these things are parts of eulas because software developers are not required to publish copyrighted software code. copyrighted code is essentially treated as if it were a trade secret.
that would certainly spell doom for many classical titles. how is the itms supposed to sell a mahler or bruckner symphony where each movement is 15 to 20 minutes long.
were the early big box macs (mac ii, iix, iifx, iicx/ci, etc) equally hard to get into?
was it possible that the compact macs were made hard to get into for liability reasons? opening the case exposed the crt's dangerous high voltage circuits.
the gateway plasma monitor is actually a lower resolution at 852 x 480. also i've seen the gateway plasma monitor and it is far from being the best in its class. for a few hundred more you can get a panasonic edtv plasma, currently the best 42" plasma on the market.
this is, so far, the clearest description of sco's case i've seen. it's even clearer than sco's own argument.
but it puts sco in the wierd position of having infringed the copyright on their own code.
the scary thing about this is that it may make it impossible to add additional code to a piece of open source software without first getting a lawyer's permission.
think about it. say sco loses its case. that will mean every big developer that runs a gnu project will now have to have a team of lawyers look over the gnu code before it gets released, just to make sure noe of the developer's closed source or private code didn't leak into it somehow.
a kilobuck is expensive for a vacuum, but reasonable for an electrolux product. as i understand it, that company doesn't bat an eylash at charging in the kilobuck range for an ordinary vacuum cleaner.
on the positive side, their vacuums are close to bulletproof and typically last for decades.
lifetime warranties do work. totes umbrellas have a lifetime warranty. i had one that broke in half, sent it in with $3 for shipping and got a brand new replacement. total cost was less than buying a really crappy umbrella from a street vendor.
i've looked over this entire forum and not one person suggested the use of lottery technology.
you know - thats the slip of paper about the size of a dollar bill and filled in with dark ink or pencil mark. everybody knows how to fill out those lottery slips. even the old ladies with bad eyesight manage to fill out $10 or $20 worth of these things a week.
when the lottery slip is run through the reader, a slip of paper is printed out giving the voter a complete run down of who he or she voted for, mirrored in machine readable form. the voter can even keep the slip they originally filled out as a private permanent record of who he or she voted for. the machinery for this is perfected, reliable, and many states already have business relationships with the companies that manufature the gear.
plus there are all kinds of tools that can make voting more fun. at the voter's option, the voting machine can be asked to generate a random list of candidates. and voters can be randomly selected to win a grand prize. imagine how that would improve voter turnout.
even better, you can follow tradition and turn one or two of these into a diner.
whatdaya mean they missed? so what they're off by 400 km. they landed right?