I know, I know, I'm taking the bait and feeding the troll.
thief on a massive scale
He didn't steal anything, he copied it. Perhaps he is guilty of copyright violation though.
a breaker of oaths
He is less than of a breaker of oaths than any of the higher-ups or politicians involved. When a politician takes office, they take an oath to uphold the constitution. James Clapper not only took and oath to uphold the constitution (probably multiple times, as he was a general), but he also took an oath before congress to tell the truth but then lied, and Snowden exposed his lies and perjury. Clapper was not charged with treason or perjury. Obama and Bush both swore very publicly to uphold the constitution (twice each), and yet they are a party to these constitutional violations and not been impeached for breaking their oaths. Apparently, there is no negative consequence to oath-breaking. And if Snowden had ever sworn to uphold the constitution (or even said the pledge of allegiance, the American flag stands for upholding the constitution and the freedom of its citizens, not violating the constitution and taking away those freedoms), then he was in fact keeping those oaths.
naive idiot
Not really. He knew what he was doing, and what would happen. That makes him neither naive nor an idiot. He saw constitutional violations, and did what he could to make the American public aware of it after he tried to go through the "proper" process. He was ignored when trying to go up the food chain, so he knew the only way to stop or expose those constitutional violations was to make them public. He knew that as a result of that, he would be persecuted, not hailed as a hero. He knows there is no way in hell that he will get a fair trial. Regardless of whether or you think the government should be allowed to continue grossly violating the constitution in secret, his actions do not show he is a naive nor an idiot.
Maybe he's also a traitor in the pay of one or more foreign governments.
Maybe the Earth will implode tomorrow. Maybe Lindsay Lohan will win a gold medal in weightlifting at the next Olympics. Maybe politicians will all start being honest and doing what's best for their constituents. All of these statements are equally ridiculous and have no basis in reality.
TBD, let's have the trial.
The whole point of this article is that there's no way in hell he would get a fair trial, so having a trial wouldn't mean jack shit.
Okay... but you don't really need lights in the day... you have the sun.
I disagree. A blinking red taillight that is visible in the daytime does help cars notice you (without distracting them like this thing would). In the daytime there's not so much the issue of not being seen by the driver's eyes, but there is of being noticed by their brain.
Not just drunk drivers. Any driver can be easily distracted. A driver who is distracted from other things going on around them is also very dangerous to you, even if you're the source of their distraction. The goal should be maximum visibility without distraction, not maximum visibility caused by maximum distraction. Pong, smiley faces, and the occasional word? Yeah, that's meant to be distracting.
Cool, somebody who can answer these questions based on actual knowledge.
Actually, lots of trademarks are no more complicated than the greek letter Pi
Except isn't it more about uniqueness and brand association than complexity?
In the case of the McDonald's M, it's not just any yellow M, it's a very specific, stylized form of it. In this case, if you look at the actual mark (http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=85785006&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=statusSearch"), it's just a generic pi in a generic font that you can see the exact same version of thousands of times over if you search for "pi symbol" on Google images. If McDonald's tried to trademark a yellow M in Times New Roman font, would it hold up in court if they sued any burger joint that had text in yellow Times New Roman container the letter M ("Try our new burger, YUM")? How about a generic M followed by a generic c? How about any other generic word or letter followed by a period?
If you show somebody the McDonald's M or the the Nike swoosh, they can say yeah, that's Nike or that's McDonald's. If you show somebody this guy's pi followed by a period, they'll say, wtf do you mean that's a brand?
If I open up a fast food joint with a yellow M that looks similar to McDonald's, that could result in brand confusion (and even if people knew it wasn't a McDonald's it's still playing off people's associations with it, I don't know how the legal standard works). If I make a T-shirt on Zazzle that says "I love pi." (using the symbol in Word or Photoshop for pi), is that creating brand confusion?
Furthermore, do trademarks have some notion like prior art? Such as they were so ubiquitous before that they couldn't possibly be uniquely associated with a brand? The use of this particular symbol has been around long before his 2012 filing date. The use of I<3 in his other trademark has also been around much longer than its 2011 filing date. Are there any legal repercussions possible against this asshole? It would be nice if he were banned from ever filing with the USPTO ever again.
Its pretty easy to tell the difference between someone selling information to a foreign government in secret, and divulging it to the public publicly.
Not always (who says it has to be in secret?). I'll make up an example. Let's say we're at war with Islamistan, and a DoD contractor or employee discovers a serious flaw in a cruise missile that was a main weapon we're using against Islamistan that would allow anybody with a couple of hundred dollars worth of equipment to take it down if it was being shot at them. The contractor or employee also discovers (with evidence) that there was corruption involved between the contractor who makes the missiles and the congressman who made sure they got the contract. Let's say you can't divulge the corruption without divulging the flaw. I know it's not a perfect analogy, but the point is - let's assume you can't expose the corruption that the American public deserves to know about without exposing the flaw that you don't want the enemy to know about.
What would you do? Would you expose it? If somebody exposes it, would you expect them to go to prison for aiding the enemy? How do you know that their motivation was to benefit the American public, and not to benefit the enemy and cause the US to lose a war?
Software patents need to pass the CS201 stink test (if a CS201 student can figure it out, it ain't novel)
The law already says that (and I think you mean obvious btw, not novel). The problem is how the law is applied/enforced. And frankly, somebody "skilled in the art" ought to mean somebody with a CS degree and several years of experience, not just a CS201 student, so you're setting the bar too low. Novel = Has the problem been solved this way before? Obvious = Is the same solution obvious to somebody skilled in the arts when presented with the problem it's trying to solve?
So then the issue is: who decides whether it's non-obvious and novel? The answer is the courts, and the winner is usually the side with the biggest legal budget (with the real winner being the lawyers). That's the part that needs to be fixed. I've heard lots of solutions that are less bad than the existing system, but nothing that really solves the problem. And even if there was a solution that solves the problem, how do you get lawmakers (who are usually lawyers and thus see lawyering as a decent solution) to adopt it?
In this case, there are probably some patents that somebody put a lot of time and expense for R&D into and came up with a non-obvious and novel solution, and they deserve to get paid. There are probably even more that are obvious or not novel, but it's cheaper and/or faster just to pay their licensing fee (extortion fee) than to fight a long expensive legal battle.
Chintzy is considered by a lot of people to be a derogatory and racist word based on Chinese or "Chink." Ironically, it had that perception before we had all of our low quality cheap junk manufactured in China. That etymology is incorrect, it's actually based on a chintz, a fabric from India. However, even though most people are wrong, it's still a word to avoid throwing around so you don't sound like a bigot to those people.
Well, isn't that the case with just about everything? Branding & perception. Ask your average purchaser what they think of Beats headphones and most of them will tell you they sound amazing and are totally worth the price. It's like Coke vs. Safeway Select cola. They taste exactly the same (not all brands taste the same, but in that particular case they do), but the store brand is 1/4 the price. Yet plenty of people still buy Coke when the store brand version is sitting in the same aisle. Now think of brand names in just about anything. What makes Beats any different? Do you seriously think quality matters more than branding perception to most consumers?
And you're ignoring this part:
An important part of the acquisition for Apple is absorbing the Beats subscription streaming service
Not just the service, but more likely the licensing agreements.
Replace "Facebook" with "Megaupload," "Mark Zuckerberg" with "Kim Dotcom," and "Iran" with "United States," and you have the exact same result.
The only difference is the victim. In the case of Facebook, its users (the "little guy") are the victims. In the case of Megaupload, big corporations are the supposed victims. Now, explain to me why this case makes the Iranian government more evil than the US government?
Say what you want about Iran, but they do have a point here. Will anyone listen to them? Probably not.
Exactly. If this were any other country (or rather, if this were a predominately Christian or Caucasian country) saying the exact same things (minus the word "Zionist") everyone on/. would be applauding them.
And that's where most people are misled. Having a car that's designed to run on E10 does not mean that it runs just as efficiently on E10. It just means that the non-metal bits (gaskets etc) are designed to be able to withstand ethanol without dissolving. If it's a "Flex Fuel" (E85) vehicle, that means it can run on fuel containing 85%-ish ethanol, but again, does not imply anything about MPG.
The problem with these tablets and other computing devices is all of digital restrictions, proprietary drivers, and similar that they are being shipped with.
If you honestly believe that's a problem, then you're delusional. If it's a problem for you then you are not the target market. We're talking about a $100 device. If you can use it to stream Netflix and Hulu to any room of your house, or play Clash of Clans and look up recipes from your kitchen, then what you are talking about doesn't matter to 99+% of potential users. And really, why should it matter to them?
Guts our military? Are you fucking kidding me? Military spending is literally the highest it's ever been (even adjusted for inflation). In 2013 (2014 budget is even higher, but wikipedia gives comparisons by country for 2013), the US's military budget was $640 Billion. 2nd place was China at $188 Billion, and third place was Russia at $87.8 Billion. Yes, that's right, the US's military budget was over 3 times as much as 2nd place China's, and 7 times 3rd place Russia's. As ridiculous as that sounds, it's not an exaggeration.
Gutting the military? How could you possibly think that? Seriously, where did you get such a preposterous idea? (I'm guessing the answer to that is Fox News).
In 2014, for example, the total astrophysics division funding was about $1.3 billion
Or about 5 days cost of the Iraq/Afghan wars, or 1/50th the cost of the F-22 program, or 1/33 Larry Ellison's net worth, or 1/58th of Bill Gates' net worth, or 1/2 the cost of a single B-2.
Coming up with a new MOSFET with a lower on resistance is a big deal, particularly if it has broader uses outside of automobiles (the article doesn't really have much in the way of details). Allowing anything with MOSFET to be 10% more efficient and with less heat, yeah, that's a big deal.
Now, the article mentions silicon carbide. Cree already makes silicon carbide MOSFETs (although they're expensive), so as far as I can tell (please, somebody correct me if I'm missing something), either this isn't news and Toyota just ran some calculations on how much power they'd save by changing components, or Toyota has come up with something new that the article is too general to say.
It makes more sense the way it's set up. Without the requirements, manufacturers won't develop the technology. Once the technology is better developed and more mature, and in higher volumes, the costs will drop. If you make it a government tax and then government gives grants to the auto manufacturers to develop the technology, they'll have no incentive to do it with the intention of making it viable. This forces the auto manufacturers to work on manufacturing methods that are viable. That said, I'm also in favor of government giving grants for research (not to the big auto manufacturers though!) or high-risk loans to promising startups for developing the technology and manufacturing methods.
But it is already expensive enough that it doesn't make a lot of sense to buy if you want to buy one to save money on gas. The price difference is $15350. If we assume $4/gal for gas, then that's 3837.5 gallons. Fiat 500 gas version gets 31mpg city, 40mpg highway. If we average that, then we get 136,231.25 miles before the price difference pays for itself. And that's assuming we paid cash for the car. If you finance it, then add interest on top of that.
Now, if you want to get the electric version because it's cool and/or you want to support the technology, cool, but realize it's not really saving you money on gas.
But really, if they have to make at least X cars, and they're not making one more, why is he telling people not buy them? They're still making the exact same number. If some people listen to him and don't buy them, doesn't that just mean they'll sit on the lot longer and sold for even less? If it does help them somehow, could they make the electric version is really horrible colors?
Right. Probable cause that evidence exists of a crime that has been commited.
What I'm saying is that collecting intelligence pointing to a crime that might be commited in the future is stepping over the bounds of how this country was originally envisioned. The occasional conspiracy may develop into a full blown crime or act of terrorism. But I'd rather lose 3000 people once every dozen years than give up the principles upon which this country was founded.
Conspiracy is a crime, even if the crime you're conspiring about hasn't been committed yet. Therefore, if there is probable cause of conspiracy, then they can get a warrant to gather actual evidence. Thoughtcrime is not a crime, but once you start planning carrying it out with other people it is. I think we both agree that probable cause to invade our privacy or take our stuff is a legal requirement, we're just debating the one little point of thoughtcrime vs conspiracy vs carrying out the act.
But I'd rather lose 3000 people once every dozen years than give up the principles upon which this country was founded.
And which hundreds of thousands have given their lives to protect.
You can generally get away with making whatever you want if you're not making money off of it and it's for personal use. Once you start making kits and selling them, you're more likely to get sued.
It's only "first to file" if the other party is seeking a patent on it too. Prior art means it's not patentable by anybody if Makerbot was first to file but there was prior art. Also remember that if they filed a provisional patent application, then that is their filing date, so any art shown after that is not prior art (I have no idea if that's the case here). Additionally, the filing date of the patent was 10/29/2013 (even though the publication date was a couple days ago). So if the prior art was shown after that (conceivably as early as 10/29/2012 depending on if there was a PPA and its filing date) then it doesn't count as prior art. It could be argued for obviousness if a bunch of others came up with it independently, but that generally comes down to who has the biggest legal budget.
I actually read the patent claims (not the detailed description or TFA, however). What's different about the patent and what's been in use for a while is that the sensor is triggered by a force on the "tip of the extruder" rather than sensors mounted to carriage. Normally in 3D printer terminology, extruder != hot end, but the diagrams and their description shows that they consider the hot end nozzle the "extruder tip."
Now if anyone says: "well, try telling that to the families of the victims of terrorism" I would have to counter that we don't feel compelled to put on sackcloth and ashes over all the far more numerous but less dramatic deaths that occur all around us all the time.
And I would counter with, "you think our freedoms should be taken away? How about all the soldiers who have died throughout the past couple of centuries, including over half a million in the last century, to defend that freedom?"
the FBI,.... finds that it can indeed gather the information it needs for its investigation through a regular search warrant applied directly to its suspect.
This works for past bad deeds. Where the evidence of a crime already exists and only needs to be collected. It doesn't help with collecting data in anticipation of future wrongdoing.
No, it's called probable cause. They don't need to have evidence yet, they only need to have probable cause that such evidence exists. If they can't show an actual reason why such evidence probably exists, why should they get to invade your privacy or take your stuff? That's what some big chunks of the constitution are all about.
I'd like to know how they can do something "lawful" and obtain the information from the customer without disclosing what the "underlying investigation" is about?
Presumably (if "lawful" is correct) they would have had to disclose what the investigation was about to the judge, but I think the implication is that they didn't have to disclose it to the suspect.
right up and until the point where you wield monopoly power. In this case, Amazon has hit that point. When you become the market, you have to be the market thus have open access. Sorry, that's the price of success.
There's a difference between a monopoly where customers have no choice, and a dominant player where most customer's choose to go as a result of that dominant player's success. This is different than an ISP where people literally have no choice. This is different from Microsoft in 2001 where people perceived they had no choice. I doubt most people who buy books from Amazon think it's the only book-seller out there. Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing one way or the other whether Amazon is evil, merely stating it's not a monopoly.
In fact, one of the authors of the Sherman Antitrust Act put it like this:
"... [a person] who merely by superior skill and intelligence...got the whole business because nobody could do it as well as he could was not a monopolist..(but was if) it involved something like the use of means which made it impossible for other persons to engage in fair competition."
The fact that your "everyone" doesn't include the citizenry is very indicative of the root of the problem. The people don't matter, only the politicians who are in power matter. These politicians are like teenagers: They have conveniently forgotten the first 3 words of the constitution that they promised to uphold.
Slashdot Mirror
I know, I know, I'm taking the bait and feeding the troll.
thief on a massive scale
He didn't steal anything, he copied it. Perhaps he is guilty of copyright violation though.
a breaker of oaths
He is less than of a breaker of oaths than any of the higher-ups or politicians involved. When a politician takes office, they take an oath to uphold the constitution. James Clapper not only took and oath to uphold the constitution (probably multiple times, as he was a general), but he also took an oath before congress to tell the truth but then lied, and Snowden exposed his lies and perjury. Clapper was not charged with treason or perjury. Obama and Bush both swore very publicly to uphold the constitution (twice each), and yet they are a party to these constitutional violations and not been impeached for breaking their oaths. Apparently, there is no negative consequence to oath-breaking. And if Snowden had ever sworn to uphold the constitution (or even said the pledge of allegiance, the American flag stands for upholding the constitution and the freedom of its citizens, not violating the constitution and taking away those freedoms), then he was in fact keeping those oaths.
naive idiot
Not really. He knew what he was doing, and what would happen. That makes him neither naive nor an idiot. He saw constitutional violations, and did what he could to make the American public aware of it after he tried to go through the "proper" process. He was ignored when trying to go up the food chain, so he knew the only way to stop or expose those constitutional violations was to make them public. He knew that as a result of that, he would be persecuted, not hailed as a hero. He knows there is no way in hell that he will get a fair trial. Regardless of whether or you think the government should be allowed to continue grossly violating the constitution in secret, his actions do not show he is a naive nor an idiot.
Maybe he's also a traitor in the pay of one or more foreign governments.
Maybe the Earth will implode tomorrow. Maybe Lindsay Lohan will win a gold medal in weightlifting at the next Olympics. Maybe politicians will all start being honest and doing what's best for their constituents. All of these statements are equally ridiculous and have no basis in reality.
TBD, let's have the trial.
The whole point of this article is that there's no way in hell he would get a fair trial, so having a trial wouldn't mean jack shit.
Okay... but you don't really need lights in the day... you have the sun.
I disagree. A blinking red taillight that is visible in the daytime does help cars notice you (without distracting them like this thing would). In the daytime there's not so much the issue of not being seen by the driver's eyes, but there is of being noticed by their brain.
Not just drunk drivers. Any driver can be easily distracted. A driver who is distracted from other things going on around them is also very dangerous to you, even if you're the source of their distraction. The goal should be maximum visibility without distraction, not maximum visibility caused by maximum distraction. Pong, smiley faces, and the occasional word? Yeah, that's meant to be distracting.
Yes, I am an IP attorney.
Cool, somebody who can answer these questions based on actual knowledge.
Actually, lots of trademarks are no more complicated than the greek letter Pi
Except isn't it more about uniqueness and brand association than complexity?
In the case of the McDonald's M, it's not just any yellow M, it's a very specific, stylized form of it. In this case, if you look at the actual mark (http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=85785006&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=statusSearch"), it's just a generic pi in a generic font that you can see the exact same version of thousands of times over if you search for "pi symbol" on Google images. If McDonald's tried to trademark a yellow M in Times New Roman font, would it hold up in court if they sued any burger joint that had text in yellow Times New Roman container the letter M ("Try our new burger, YUM")? How about a generic M followed by a generic c? How about any other generic word or letter followed by a period?
If you show somebody the McDonald's M or the the Nike swoosh, they can say yeah, that's Nike or that's McDonald's. If you show somebody this guy's pi followed by a period, they'll say, wtf do you mean that's a brand?
If I open up a fast food joint with a yellow M that looks similar to McDonald's, that could result in brand confusion (and even if people knew it wasn't a McDonald's it's still playing off people's associations with it, I don't know how the legal standard works). If I make a T-shirt on Zazzle that says "I love pi." (using the symbol in Word or Photoshop for pi), is that creating brand confusion?
Furthermore, do trademarks have some notion like prior art? Such as they were so ubiquitous before that they couldn't possibly be uniquely associated with a brand? The use of this particular symbol has been around long before his 2012 filing date. The use of I<3 in his other trademark has also been around much longer than its 2011 filing date. Are there any legal repercussions possible against this asshole? It would be nice if he were banned from ever filing with the USPTO ever again.
Its pretty easy to tell the difference between someone selling information to a foreign government in secret, and divulging it to the public publicly.
Not always (who says it has to be in secret?). I'll make up an example. Let's say we're at war with Islamistan, and a DoD contractor or employee discovers a serious flaw in a cruise missile that was a main weapon we're using against Islamistan that would allow anybody with a couple of hundred dollars worth of equipment to take it down if it was being shot at them. The contractor or employee also discovers (with evidence) that there was corruption involved between the contractor who makes the missiles and the congressman who made sure they got the contract. Let's say you can't divulge the corruption without divulging the flaw. I know it's not a perfect analogy, but the point is - let's assume you can't expose the corruption that the American public deserves to know about without exposing the flaw that you don't want the enemy to know about.
What would you do? Would you expose it? If somebody exposes it, would you expect them to go to prison for aiding the enemy? How do you know that their motivation was to benefit the American public, and not to benefit the enemy and cause the US to lose a war?
Software patents need to pass the CS201 stink test (if a CS201 student can figure it out, it ain't novel)
The law already says that (and I think you mean obvious btw, not novel). The problem is how the law is applied/enforced. And frankly, somebody "skilled in the art" ought to mean somebody with a CS degree and several years of experience, not just a CS201 student, so you're setting the bar too low.
Novel = Has the problem been solved this way before?
Obvious = Is the same solution obvious to somebody skilled in the arts when presented with the problem it's trying to solve?
So then the issue is: who decides whether it's non-obvious and novel? The answer is the courts, and the winner is usually the side with the biggest legal budget (with the real winner being the lawyers). That's the part that needs to be fixed. I've heard lots of solutions that are less bad than the existing system, but nothing that really solves the problem. And even if there was a solution that solves the problem, how do you get lawmakers (who are usually lawyers and thus see lawyering as a decent solution) to adopt it?
In this case, there are probably some patents that somebody put a lot of time and expense for R&D into and came up with a non-obvious and novel solution, and they deserve to get paid. There are probably even more that are obvious or not novel, but it's cheaper and/or faster just to pay their licensing fee (extortion fee) than to fight a long expensive legal battle.
Chintzy is considered by a lot of people to be a derogatory and racist word based on Chinese or "Chink." Ironically, it had that perception before we had all of our low quality cheap junk manufactured in China. That etymology is incorrect, it's actually based on a chintz, a fabric from India. However, even though most people are wrong, it's still a word to avoid throwing around so you don't sound like a bigot to those people.
so apparently the logo is worth billions
Well, isn't that the case with just about everything? Branding & perception. Ask your average purchaser what they think of Beats headphones and most of them will tell you they sound amazing and are totally worth the price. It's like Coke vs. Safeway Select cola. They taste exactly the same (not all brands taste the same, but in that particular case they do), but the store brand is 1/4 the price. Yet plenty of people still buy Coke when the store brand version is sitting in the same aisle. Now think of brand names in just about anything. What makes Beats any different? Do you seriously think quality matters more than branding perception to most consumers?
And you're ignoring this part:
An important part of the acquisition for Apple is absorbing the Beats subscription streaming service
Not just the service, but more likely the licensing agreements.
Replace "Facebook" with "Megaupload," "Mark Zuckerberg" with "Kim Dotcom," and "Iran" with "United States," and you have the exact same result.
The only difference is the victim. In the case of Facebook, its users (the "little guy") are the victims. In the case of Megaupload, big corporations are the supposed victims. Now, explain to me why this case makes the Iranian government more evil than the US government?
Say what you want about Iran, but they do have a point here. Will anyone listen to them? Probably not.
Exactly. If this were any other country (or rather, if this were a predominately Christian or Caucasian country) saying the exact same things (minus the word "Zionist") everyone on /. would be applauding them.
I have a "new" 2013 Mazda 3.
And that's where most people are misled. Having a car that's designed to run on E10 does not mean that it runs just as efficiently on E10. It just means that the non-metal bits (gaskets etc) are designed to be able to withstand ethanol without dissolving. If it's a "Flex Fuel" (E85) vehicle, that means it can run on fuel containing 85%-ish ethanol, but again, does not imply anything about MPG.
The problem with these tablets and other computing devices is all of digital restrictions, proprietary drivers, and similar that they are being shipped with.
If you honestly believe that's a problem, then you're delusional. If it's a problem for you then you are not the target market. We're talking about a $100 device. If you can use it to stream Netflix and Hulu to any room of your house, or play Clash of Clans and look up recipes from your kitchen, then what you are talking about doesn't matter to 99+% of potential users. And really, why should it matter to them?
while BHO guts our military.
Guts our military? Are you fucking kidding me? Military spending is literally the highest it's ever been (even adjusted for inflation). In 2013 (2014 budget is even higher, but wikipedia gives comparisons by country for 2013), the US's military budget was $640 Billion. 2nd place was China at $188 Billion, and third place was Russia at $87.8 Billion. Yes, that's right, the US's military budget was over 3 times as much as 2nd place China's, and 7 times 3rd place Russia's. As ridiculous as that sounds, it's not an exaggeration.
Gutting the military? How could you possibly think that? Seriously, where did you get such a preposterous idea? (I'm guessing the answer to that is Fox News).
In 2014, for example, the total astrophysics division funding was about $1.3 billion
Or about 5 days cost of the Iraq/Afghan wars, or 1/50th the cost of the F-22 program, or 1/33 Larry Ellison's net worth, or 1/58th of Bill Gates' net worth, or 1/2 the cost of a single B-2.
Coming up with a new MOSFET with a lower on resistance is a big deal, particularly if it has broader uses outside of automobiles (the article doesn't really have much in the way of details). Allowing anything with MOSFET to be 10% more efficient and with less heat, yeah, that's a big deal.
Now, the article mentions silicon carbide. Cree already makes silicon carbide MOSFETs (although they're expensive), so as far as I can tell (please, somebody correct me if I'm missing something), either this isn't news and Toyota just ran some calculations on how much power they'd save by changing components, or Toyota has come up with something new that the article is too general to say.
It makes more sense the way it's set up. Without the requirements, manufacturers won't develop the technology. Once the technology is better developed and more mature, and in higher volumes, the costs will drop. If you make it a government tax and then government gives grants to the auto manufacturers to develop the technology, they'll have no incentive to do it with the intention of making it viable. This forces the auto manufacturers to work on manufacturing methods that are viable. That said, I'm also in favor of government giving grants for research (not to the big auto manufacturers though!) or high-risk loans to promising startups for developing the technology and manufacturing methods.
But it is already expensive enough that it doesn't make a lot of sense to buy if you want to buy one to save money on gas. The price difference is $15350. If we assume $4/gal for gas, then that's 3837.5 gallons. Fiat 500 gas version gets 31mpg city, 40mpg highway. If we average that, then we get 136,231.25 miles before the price difference pays for itself. And that's assuming we paid cash for the car. If you finance it, then add interest on top of that.
Now, if you want to get the electric version because it's cool and/or you want to support the technology, cool, but realize it's not really saving you money on gas.
But really, if they have to make at least X cars, and they're not making one more, why is he telling people not buy them? They're still making the exact same number. If some people listen to him and don't buy them, doesn't that just mean they'll sit on the lot longer and sold for even less? If it does help them somehow, could they make the electric version is really horrible colors?
Right. Probable cause that evidence exists of a crime that has been commited.
What I'm saying is that collecting intelligence pointing to a crime that might be commited in the future is stepping over the bounds of how this country was originally envisioned. The occasional conspiracy may develop into a full blown crime or act of terrorism. But I'd rather lose 3000 people once every dozen years than give up the principles upon which this country was founded.
Conspiracy is a crime, even if the crime you're conspiring about hasn't been committed yet. Therefore, if there is probable cause of conspiracy, then they can get a warrant to gather actual evidence. Thoughtcrime is not a crime, but once you start planning carrying it out with other people it is. I think we both agree that probable cause to invade our privacy or take our stuff is a legal requirement, we're just debating the one little point of thoughtcrime vs conspiracy vs carrying out the act.
But I'd rather lose 3000 people once every dozen years than give up the principles upon which this country was founded.
And which hundreds of thousands have given their lives to protect.
You can generally get away with making whatever you want if you're not making money off of it and it's for personal use. Once you start making kits and selling them, you're more likely to get sued.
It's only "first to file" if the other party is seeking a patent on it too. Prior art means it's not patentable by anybody if Makerbot was first to file but there was prior art. Also remember that if they filed a provisional patent application, then that is their filing date, so any art shown after that is not prior art (I have no idea if that's the case here). Additionally, the filing date of the patent was 10/29/2013 (even though the publication date was a couple days ago). So if the prior art was shown after that (conceivably as early as 10/29/2012 depending on if there was a PPA and its filing date) then it doesn't count as prior art. It could be argued for obviousness if a bunch of others came up with it independently, but that generally comes down to who has the biggest legal budget.
I actually read the patent claims (not the detailed description or TFA, however). What's different about the patent and what's been in use for a while is that the sensor is triggered by a force on the "tip of the extruder" rather than sensors mounted to carriage. Normally in 3D printer terminology, extruder != hot end, but the diagrams and their description shows that they consider the hot end nozzle the "extruder tip."
Now if anyone says: "well, try telling that to the families of the victims of terrorism" I would have to counter that we don't feel compelled to put on sackcloth and ashes over all the far more numerous but less dramatic deaths that occur all around us all the time.
And I would counter with, "you think our freedoms should be taken away? How about all the soldiers who have died throughout the past couple of centuries, including over half a million in the last century, to defend that freedom?"
the FBI, .... finds that it can indeed gather the information it needs for its investigation through a regular search warrant applied directly to its suspect.
This works for past bad deeds. Where the evidence of a crime already exists and only needs to be collected. It doesn't help with collecting data in anticipation of future wrongdoing.
No, it's called probable cause. They don't need to have evidence yet, they only need to have probable cause that such evidence exists. If they can't show an actual reason why such evidence probably exists, why should they get to invade your privacy or take your stuff? That's what some big chunks of the constitution are all about.
I'd like to know how they can do something "lawful" and obtain the information from the customer without disclosing what the "underlying investigation" is about?
Presumably (if "lawful" is correct) they would have had to disclose what the investigation was about to the judge, but I think the implication is that they didn't have to disclose it to the suspect.
right up and until the point where you wield monopoly power. In this case, Amazon has hit that point. When you become the market, you have to be the market thus have open access. Sorry, that's the price of success.
There's a difference between a monopoly where customers have no choice, and a dominant player where most customer's choose to go as a result of that dominant player's success. This is different than an ISP where people literally have no choice. This is different from Microsoft in 2001 where people perceived they had no choice. I doubt most people who buy books from Amazon think it's the only book-seller out there. Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing one way or the other whether Amazon is evil, merely stating it's not a monopoly.
In fact, one of the authors of the Sherman Antitrust Act put it like this:
"... [a person] who merely by superior skill and intelligence...got the whole business because nobody could do it as well as he could was not a monopolist..(but was if) it involved something like the use of means which made it impossible for other persons to engage in fair competition."
Everybody wins here
The fact that your "everyone" doesn't include the citizenry is very indicative of the root of the problem. The people don't matter, only the politicians who are in power matter. These politicians are like teenagers: They have conveniently forgotten the first 3 words of the constitution that they promised to uphold.