All the crashes, BSOD's, hangups... in Windows are in fact due to software that MS didn't write because they didn't know they had to write it for Windows to work. So if Windows gets any better with new versions it is not because of added functionalities directly but because the code of these added functionalities make the old code work correctly.
Oh, wait, all these new functionality won't work well until even more features are added to make the latest ones work, thus creating an infinite upgrade loop.
Ever heard of Prometheus? It's trickery to get the power of the gods. So we found a powerful new fire and Rosen and Valenti are doing their best to say in booming voices "Put that back! Only the priesthood may hold an uncovered flame! Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"
Sure, and like in the greek myth prometheus (Napster) who gave the fire (p2p) back to men shall have his liver eaten by an eagle every day (get all his users/marketshare taken away from him). The only difference is that its liver (number of users) doesn't regenerate day after day, so he (Napster) will eventually die. Oh, and the men don't care about him any more either.
Nobody is better at doing nothing than me. To prove my point; he's doing a show about him doing nothing while I'm doing nothing about me doing nothing.
There, I beat him fair and square.
My flatmate beats you up, not only does he do nothing and doesn't do a show about doing nothing but he doesn't even post on slashdot about doing nothing, he just sit in front of the TV for a good deal of the day. He doesn't even do his own shopping, thanks to a broken leg. NOW, try to beat that up (humm, maybe if you have a friend in coma, or dead).
All I see is that some bastards are paid to read tons of comics and do resume about them, which, to be scrupulously accurate, needs to be cross-checkes... by reading the comics again.
9. Men are from mars, women are from venus. I know this to be true. Get the book on CD, and listen to it in your car. Then dispose of it like you would pr0n. Descreatly. Never let anyone know you listened to it (because they will think you are a f4g. However, there actually are some good tools and concepts in the book. It teaches you not to try and solve her problems, but when to just listen.
Actually he might want the other book "Mars and Venus in the bedroom" too, just in case;).
One of my best ever moments playing a video game was at the end of Dungeon Keeper, when you have to kill the Avatar from Ultima.
The first time I played that level I didn't know I was was supposed to kill it and captured it instead (never managed to do it again afterwards) so that after putting him in my torture room and feeding him plenty of chickens he came to MY SIDE. What really surprised me was when I received a message that the Avatar's followers had ressuscitated him. Being the first time I played the level I didn't understand (how can teh do that if he isn't dead) but when he attacked me with his friends I had the coolest ever fight in video game History: the Avatar against the Avatar. The one I had captured and converted against the new one. Man, that was cool.
haven't watched Indiana Jones lately? He hates SNAKES not RATS.
Yup, it's Indiana's father (Sean Connery) who hates rats. When they are in the catacombs of Venice to find a tomb the girl says that Indy's father would have been completely excited to be here, at which Indy responds that he couldn't have come here, "he hates rats" (that's from the top of my head and I haven't seen the movies for ages and I only saw them in French up to now).
BTW, can you "here" the music:
"Ta tada taaa ta tada, ta tada taaa, ta tada ta ta, ta tada ta, ta tada, ta tada-ta tada-ta tada-ta tada, da ta tada"
And am I the only person in the world that is worried about the fact that all Switzerland's neighbouring countries would describe them as "shy, quiet.. keep themselves to themselves.. seem like really nice, polite fellows, wouldn't hurt a fly". It's only a matter of time.
Oh, don't worry, Switzerland wouldn't hurt a fly unless the fly attacked first, but then, if the fly attacks it has got no chance against them.
(i) If links are part of the content of a page, then the whole DeCSS case is sunk. You have to choose what you believe. Smart tags may indeed be the EFF's best friend here because if Microsoft can convince the courts that they are permitted to add whatever links they like because they are not part of a web page, then by implication you also have the right to link your page wherever you like and not be responsible for the content at the other end. So, either Microsoft and the EFF are both correct, or both are wrong. You can't have it both ways.
Let's look at it this way. Your website is your house full of rooms (webpages) themselves full of doors (links).
I can put a door to another house in one of my rooms but I am not responsible ifsomething illegal is going on there. After all, it could be normal when I put the door and tomorrow my neighbour can kill his wife. This is the DeCSS situation.
BUT, this doesn't give Microsoft or anybody else
the right to come and virtually fill my house with doors, which is what Smarttags do (modulo the fact that they don't do it on the real 'rooms' themselves, only on the one your users have
downloaded.
(ii) Smart Tags may or may not be included in the release. Microsoft is testing the waters to see people's reactions and if it is too bad then they are likely to can the idea.
Even if this was the case it doesn't change the copyright infringement side of smarttags. As long as this service is a "opt-in by default" thing, they are creating a derivative work of copyrighted material without the prior assent of the copyright owner.
If you don't believe me maybe you remember the cases about rebroadcasting TV on the web. There was something about the fact that they can (at least in Canada) only if the original broadcast is not modified. This mean they can add ads around the broadcast but not in the broadcast. I t should be the same for Smarttags, you should have an extra window/frame named "what's related" or whatever with the Smarttags and the original material left untouched. This also helps the user distinghish between what's from the site and what's from MS & Co.
(iii) Smart Tags will probably be disabled by default, or at the very least be an option in the Internet Connection Wizard. This means the end user is actually defining how they want to parse your web site - whether they want the tags or not.
For copyright reasons they should be disable by default on the website side. That is, the website should opt-in to have smarttags, not the user (although it is even better if the user can also opt-out).
(iv) Third parties can provide their own smart tag filters to link wherever they like. This isn't a Microsoft-only club. You can even have a Slashdot smart tag if you like that links to articles on the subject.
Apparently Samrttags are browser-side, so whoever control the browser can control the smarttags, whatever they say they will do may be different from what they can do and even more different from what they will *really* do.
(iv) This isn't about publisher's rights. Microsoft isn't changing what is published, they are effectively providing reference material on what is published. As I stated in (i), links aren't content - they are just references to other content.
It is about publisher's right, there is a difference between publishing a book to serve as a reference to another book (say, "a guide to and smurch") which is what I propose with another window/frame with smartlinks and modifying the book between the publishing house and the printer to add "references to other content", which is what they do (the publisher being the website and the printer being the browser).
WRONG. If you do not enforce a patent, and allow an industry to build up around it, THEN try to enforce the patent you will get laughed out of court.
Make a GIF creating software and tell that to Unisys when they come after you.
The fact is, once granted, a patent can only be lost if either the patent duration comes to an end (eg RSA), you forgot to pay the annual fees or because it has been (completely or partly) invalidated in court.
With patents you can even choose not to prosecute somebody and prosecute somebody else without affecting your rights (like in chess you are not forced to take a piece) whereas in Trademark laws you must prosecute everybody infringing otherwise you have dilution of your trademark (a bit like chequer where you must make a move to eat pieces if such a move is possible).
Isn't BT in danger of losing it's patent? I mean if enough substantial information can be shown that "hyperlinks" existed before BT pateted them, then can't BT lose the patent?
Yup, that's called prior art, but if they don't sue anybody their patent is useless too, the only difference is that it costs less not to enforce it if you know it is unlikely to stand in court (lawyers are not reputed to be cheap).
Not being familliar with English law, can Prodigy sue BT for bringing a "frivilous" lawsuit?
Could be, could be, but first they need to win this lawsuit.
If it loses, it can always try again at a later date.
Unlikely, indeed, if it loses it can lose either because the patent or part (some otf the claims) of it is declared invalid, in which case they can't sue over these parts that were invalidated. Of course if some parts have not been invalidated (either because the court held them to be patentable or because they were not part of the lawsuit) then BT could sue over these non-invalidated parts.
IIRC Pi is a "universe number", which means that any sequence of numbers can be found in it.
I wanted to do the same as you with DeCSS but I think I should just try to write a short story in which they manage to et Pi outlawed and all the things that allow to calculate Pi (i.e. all circular stuffs) and find that they outlawed CD's and DVD's.
English is the grande dame of the internet, not some language du jour.
That's probably why it needs to borrow all its greatness from other languages, like "grande dame" or "language du jour".
Face it, guys, English is the Ankh Morpork* of languages and if it has never been defeated it is only because it never had an ennemy that it couldn't corrupt or make his own (i.e. probably more than half of English is not English anyway).
* For those that don't know what it is go and read a few discworld novel by Terry Pratchett.
Re:Query for "Bloom County" fans! ... (NOT O-T)
on
One Click Patent News
·
· Score: 1
Recall, patents for the common waterbed were denied because Robert A. Heinlein gave a description of them in at least one of his popular novels.
Wasn't it in "Stranger in a strange land" when Michael Valentine Smith is "kept" in an hospital room I think the bed is a waterbed. I will have to check though.
Ok, I haven't read the links so I may be wrong, but if Earth becomes unfriendly wouldn't it be easier to teraform it rather than to go on another planet that we would have to terraform anyway (even if we find another planet that can sustain human life without terraforming it would probably be far far away and maybe even in another galaxy).
that [automatically I suppose] sends e-mails to everyone in your Outlook Address...
Of course it is not spam; we all know what kind of program does that kind of action, this is a MS sponsored macro virus (or troyan horse given that it is put in the software).
suppose somone were to circumvent the protections on the TNEF format and write a program that could understand it, would you be liable under the DMCA section on anti-circumvention?
Quite unlikely given that the DMCA has an exceptions for computer programs and datafile formats. While one could think that this exception should apply to DeCSS (after all, a movie is in a datafile) given that movies have existed for long it will be hard to point the obvious.
Of course, if MS tried this trick and won it would only prove once more how stupid the legal system can be.
I haven't a lot of information about it but from what they said at the radio yesterday MS was issued a warning for using their monopoly to gain an unfair advantage in the server area, so it seems that it would be a different case from the US given that the US case was about desktop computers, not server computers.
Personnaly I find that a two months limit is perfectly acceptable. Would you begin to contest a wrong billing that occurred ten years ago? No! Then you need a time limit, and I think that 2 months is plenty enough time to complain.
This is absolutely impossible for me to stop using cell phones right now, mostly because I don't use any any way anyway.
More seriously, if their is a problem with radiation they will say that their was a problem with the precedent generation but the new generation is safe and when the next generation comes we will know that the old generation was indeed dangerous (I never trusted Kirk;)).
Slashdot Mirror
What's all the fuss about these guy that weren't even able to get where they were supposed to go. Bloody incompetents if you want my opinion.
All the crashes, BSOD's, hangups... in Windows are in fact due to software that MS didn't write because they didn't know they had to write it for Windows to work. So if Windows gets any better with new versions it is not because of added functionalities directly but because the code of these added functionalities make the old code work correctly.
Oh, wait, all these new functionality won't work well until even more features are added to make the latest ones work, thus creating an infinite upgrade loop.
Nah, you just go and tell other ones to change their system because they are smaller than you.
Sure, and like in the greek myth prometheus (Napster) who gave the fire (p2p) back to men shall have his liver eaten by an eagle every day (get all his users/marketshare taken away from him). The only difference is that its liver (number of users) doesn't regenerate day after day, so he (Napster) will eventually die. Oh, and the men don't care about him any more either.
There, I beat him fair and square.
My flatmate beats you up, not only does he do nothing and doesn't do a show about doing nothing but he doesn't even post on slashdot about doing nothing, he just sit in front of the TV for a good deal of the day. He doesn't even do his own shopping, thanks to a broken leg. NOW, try to beat that up (humm, maybe if you have a friend in coma, or dead).
All I see is that some bastards are paid to read tons of comics and do resume about them, which, to be scrupulously accurate, needs to be cross-checkes... by reading the comics again.
Bastards
Actually he might want the other book "Mars and Venus in the bedroom" too, just in case
The first time I played that level I didn't know I was was supposed to kill it and captured it instead (never managed to do it again afterwards) so that after putting him in my torture room and feeding him plenty of chickens he came to MY SIDE. What really surprised me was when I received a message that the Avatar's followers had ressuscitated him. Being the first time I played the level I didn't understand (how can teh do that if he isn't dead) but when he attacked me with his friends I had the coolest ever fight in video game History: the Avatar against the Avatar. The one I had captured and converted against the new one. Man, that was cool.
Yup, it's Indiana's father (Sean Connery) who hates rats. When they are in the catacombs of Venice to find a tomb the girl says that Indy's father would have been completely excited to be here, at which Indy responds that he couldn't have come here, "he hates rats" (that's from the top of my head and I haven't seen the movies for ages and I only saw them in French up to now).
BTW, can you "here" the music: "Ta tada taaa ta tada, ta tada taaa, ta tada ta ta, ta tada ta, ta tada, ta tada-ta tada-ta tada-ta tada, da ta tada"
Really? Did he have any girls?
"Hey guys, I'm going out with George tonight."
Guys - "What? Are you gay?"
"No, no, she is a girl"
Guys - "So you're making the guy this time, what about next time though?"
Oh, don't worry, Switzerland wouldn't hurt a fly unless the fly attacked first, but then, if the fly attacks it has got no chance against them.
(i) If links are part of the content of a page, then the whole DeCSS case is sunk. You have to choose what you believe. Smart tags may indeed be the EFF's best friend here because if Microsoft can convince the courts that they are permitted to add whatever links they like because they are not part of a web page, then by implication you also have the right to link your page wherever you like and not be responsible for the content at the other end. So, either Microsoft and the EFF are both correct, or both are wrong. You can't have it both ways. Let's look at it this way. Your website is your house full of rooms (webpages) themselves full of doors (links).
I can put a door to another house in one of my rooms but I am not responsible ifsomething illegal is going on there. After all, it could be normal when I put the door and tomorrow my neighbour can kill his wife. This is the DeCSS situation.
BUT, this doesn't give Microsoft or anybody else the right to come and virtually fill my house with doors, which is what Smarttags do (modulo the fact that they don't do it on the real 'rooms' themselves, only on the one your users have downloaded.
(ii) Smart Tags may or may not be included in the release. Microsoft is testing the waters to see people's reactions and if it is too bad then they are likely to can the idea.
Even if this was the case it doesn't change the copyright infringement side of smarttags. As long as this service is a "opt-in by default" thing, they are creating a derivative work of copyrighted material without the prior assent of the copyright owner.
If you don't believe me maybe you remember the cases about rebroadcasting TV on the web. There was something about the fact that they can (at least in Canada) only if the original broadcast is not modified. This mean they can add ads around the broadcast but not in the broadcast. I t should be the same for Smarttags, you should have an extra window/frame named "what's related" or whatever with the Smarttags and the original material left untouched. This also helps the user distinghish between what's from the site and what's from MS & Co.
(iii) Smart Tags will probably be disabled by default, or at the very least be an option in the Internet Connection Wizard. This means the end user is actually defining how they want to parse your web site - whether they want the tags or not.
For copyright reasons they should be disable by default on the website side. That is, the website should opt-in to have smarttags, not the user (although it is even better if the user can also opt-out).
(iv) Third parties can provide their own smart tag filters to link wherever they like. This isn't a Microsoft-only club. You can even have a Slashdot smart tag if you like that links to articles on the subject.
Apparently Samrttags are browser-side, so whoever control the browser can control the smarttags, whatever they say they will do may be different from what they can do and even more different from what they will *really* do.
(iv) This isn't about publisher's rights. Microsoft isn't changing what is published, they are effectively providing reference material on what is published. As I stated in (i), links aren't content - they are just references to other content.
It is about publisher's right, there is a difference between publishing a book to serve as a reference to another book (say, "a guide to and smurch") which is what I propose with another window/frame with smartlinks and modifying the book between the publishing house and the printer to add "references to other content", which is what they do (the publisher being the website and the printer being the browser).
Make a GIF creating software and tell that to Unisys when they come after you.
The fact is, once granted, a patent can only be lost if either the patent duration comes to an end (eg RSA), you forgot to pay the annual fees or because it has been (completely or partly) invalidated in court.
With patents you can even choose not to prosecute somebody and prosecute somebody else without affecting your rights (like in chess you are not forced to take a piece) whereas in Trademark laws you must prosecute everybody infringing otherwise you have dilution of your trademark (a bit like chequer where you must make a move to eat pieces if such a move is possible).
Yup, that's called prior art, but if they don't sue anybody their patent is useless too, the only difference is that it costs less not to enforce it if you know it is unlikely to stand in court (lawyers are not reputed to be cheap).
Not being familliar with English law, can Prodigy sue BT for bringing a "frivilous" lawsuit?
Could be, could be, but first they need to win this lawsuit.
If it loses, it can always try again at a later date.
Unlikely, indeed, if it loses it can lose either because the patent or part (some otf the claims) of it is declared invalid, in which case they can't sue over these parts that were invalidated. Of course if some parts have not been invalidated (either because the court held them to be patentable or because they were not part of the lawsuit) then BT could sue over these non-invalidated parts.
IIRC Pi is a "universe number", which means that any sequence of numbers can be found in it.
I wanted to do the same as you with DeCSS but I think I should just try to write a short story in which they manage to et Pi outlawed and all the things that allow to calculate Pi (i.e. all circular stuffs) and find that they outlawed CD's and DVD's.
Should take the time to do it one of these days.
That's probably why it needs to borrow all its greatness from other languages, like "grande dame" or "language du jour".
Face it, guys, English is the Ankh Morpork* of languages and if it has never been defeated it is only because it never had an ennemy that it couldn't corrupt or make his own (i.e. probably more than half of English is not English anyway).
* For those that don't know what it is go and read a few discworld novel by Terry Pratchett.
Wasn't it in "Stranger in a strange land" when Michael Valentine Smith is "kept" in an hospital room I think the bed is a waterbed. I will have to check though.
Ok, I haven't read the links so I may be wrong, but if Earth becomes unfriendly wouldn't it be easier to teraform it rather than to go on another planet that we would have to terraform anyway (even if we find another planet that can sustain human life without terraforming it would probably be far far away and maybe even in another galaxy).
Of course it is not spam; we all know what kind of program does that kind of action, this is a MS sponsored macro virus (or troyan horse given that it is put in the software).
Quite unlikely given that the DMCA has an exceptions for computer programs and datafile formats. While one could think that this exception should apply to DeCSS (after all, a movie is in a datafile) given that movies have existed for long it will be hard to point the obvious.
Of course, if MS tried this trick and won it would only prove once more how stupid the legal system can be.
I haven't a lot of information about it but from what they said at the radio yesterday MS was issued a warning for using their monopoly to gain an unfair advantage in the server area, so it seems that it would be a different case from the US given that the US case was about desktop computers, not server computers.
intersting times are coming ahead anyway.
Personnaly I find that a two months limit is perfectly acceptable. Would you begin to contest a wrong billing that occurred ten years ago? No! Then you need a time limit, and I think that 2 months is plenty enough time to complain.
Except that positronic brains are more Asimov's Robots (can you say Daneel R Olivey or whatever it is in the English version) than Star Trek.
More seriously, if their is a problem with radiation they will say that their was a problem with the precedent generation but the new generation is safe and when the next generation comes we will know that the old generation was indeed dangerous (I never trusted Kirk ;)).
It's because America is the land of freedom.