I believe that trademark does allow creation of something that imitates the style of the trademark for purpose of satire or parody, but I think it may still necessary for it to somehow be distinctive. I'm more familiar with copyright law than trademark, to be honest... but IANAL, so standard disclaimers apply. Ultimately, everything I've said is true to only the best of my understanding and knowledge.
Mickey Mouse is trademarked, and those trademark protections last into perpetuity... or until Disney stops defending the trademark (ie, into perpetuity). Steamboat Willy, a Mickey Mouse cartoon, is already public domain in some international jurisdictions, but the trademark is still valid. What that means in those jurisdictions, and in the US, if Disney does eventually allow the copyright to expire, is that although Mickey Mouse is trademarked, the work can be freely copied and distributed in and among those jurisdictions, as well as even have derivative works made from it, so long as any derivative works do not use the trademarked Mickey Mouse character. Actual copies of the cartoon are not considered misappropriation of the Mickey Mouse trademark because Mickey Mouse was obviously used with permission in that work.
The nutrient levels in martian soil are lower than on earth, but they are not zero. With some work, which Damon's character does in the film, it is not inconceivable for someone with sufficient botanical skill to accomplish what he does... (although I do suspect it would take more effort than what the film depicted).
Is it still perjury if being wrong about one's claim is a matter of incompetence, and not intentional dishonesty? Seems like that's the case here... Sony *should* have known that their claim against the person they licensed it from was not infringing, but for whatever reason they didn't.
I realize I'm probably preaching to the choir by commenting here, but the nytimes page linked to had no comment section, or else I would have said something there. But I really wish that people, and especially the media, would stop referring to this sort of thing as a hologram. It's called "pepper's ghost", it's a well-known illusion, and is not anything remotely like a hologram.
The problem with being prosecuted him for saying this under the category of hate speech is that the court would have to explicitly acknowledge that Satan even exists. Otherwise, this is just somebody expressing their opinion, and has no bearing on reality.
As an example of how extreme Canada is with recent laws, it's illegal for churches now to speak of homosexuality being a sin. To do so violates the law.
If the phone is locked by fingerprint, they don't have to compel the owner to unlock it... they just fingerprint him or her, and fabricate a duplicate that can be used to unlock the phone.
If it is locked via password and they have physical access to the device, they could theoretically still brute force the password, although this may take a while.
Impossible means something different from what Apple is claiming.
A method called collectAllCustomers should not require a comment explaining *what* it does. What the method does should be transparently obvious from the name. Ideally, how it goes about this should be equally transparently obvious from the code itself by keeping the method concise, and using well named identifiers.
Except that never actually happens on any project more complex than a school programming assignment.
Code says what actually happens, not comments. At best, code can only break promises that moment make, but intThe end such comments are still ultimately lying, even if through no fault of their own.
The only way the code can lie while the comments tell the truth is if the computer executes the comments and not the code. Hmmm reminds me of COBOL.
I hate to break it to you, but that never really happens. Further, code says what is *actually* happening. Comments can indicate intent, but intent means zilch if you don't actually go and do it. Code cannot lie... At most it can only fail to fulfill the expected requirements,
i) Redefining operators and functions is evil
Yes it is. And no there are no good reasons to do so as a programmer unless your redefinition is WELL documented and stays the same in the whole program. It is already stupid that Java uses the plus sign for String concatenation. Especially, because String is a calls in Java and not a data type. However, it sucks even more if the + sign or * sign is redefined and means one time multiplication of two scalars and the time it is a cross product.
It might be more code to type (or to provide by the IDE) to actually write a function name, but please do so, it increases readability.
Which is easier to read?
n = a.subtract(b).multiply(c.subtract(d))
or
n = (a - b) * (c - d)
If you seriously think that the first one is more readable than the second one, then consider this.... do the 'subtract' and 'multiply' methods modify the contents of their class instance, or would it have been better to name it 'minus' and 'times'? The naming of the methods the former way strongly implies that it modifies the instance, and this will not be clear to a reader who is expecting the code to simply say what it doing in a clear and unambiguous way.
Yes, I will certainly agree that operator overloading generally only makes much sense in very mathematical contexts such as what I have given above (I have often cursed Stroustrup for setting a bad example in the early C++ days by overloading the bitshift operator to do I/O.... convenient, sure.... but completely counterintuitive to the normal meaning of the operator). I would argue, however, that since programing *IS* math, this kind of thing happens a lot. And since are infinitely more mathematical types than just what programming languages might offer built in (complex, vector, quaternion, matrix, and many many more,)... for vectors and matrices, there are often performance considerations to using a general class as opposed to one that is optimized for a data structure of a specific size, so there are infinite variations on just those two particular data types.
The biggest problem with operator overloading is that it is abused by programmers as a shorthand for something that has nothing to do with what the operator ordinarily means (eg, > in C++), but I strongly argue that suggesting that it has no place in programming because of that is akin to suggesting that programmers should not be allowed to choose their own identifiers on variables or functions names on account that they might also be misleading or cryptic.
By far, the single biggest problem with comments is that they lie.
Someone write the comment, and then the code later evolves and changes, and a programmer forgets to update the comment. This happens *ALL OF THE FUCKING TIME*. While some types of comments, such as dOxygen or javadoc may be able to peform very rudimentary verifications that the code has not changed beyond what the particular formatted comment would describe, it is not possible possible to for a compiler to generally verify that a particular comment still carries the same meaning that it did about the code when it was first written. A wrong comment is orders of magnitude worse in terms of the costs to productivity than no comment at all.
Writing good comments, therefore, is a discipline that is arguably harder than programming itself... since one must not only have the discipline to program in the first place, but must also maintain the discipline of keeping the documentation up-to-date and informative.
Without an hourly rate, you are at the mercy of their definition of 'reasonable'.
Fortunately, there's such a thing as arbitration in employee/employer disputes, and it is their definition of "reasonable" that ultimately matters, not the employer's. Having actually had a share of such disputes in my lifetime, I can fairly confidently state that barring highly unusual circumstances, the equating to severance to a rate of pay over a period of time would *NEVER* evaluate to any less than the rate of pay at the time of termination. This is based on anecdotal evidence, however, and should not be construed as legal advice.
8 weeks pay, for 2 years at 5 hours/week? Not just no, hell no! That's a pay cut for working part time.
Well, at 8 weeks pay, you are being paid for 320 hours of work, which at 5 hours per week would actually take only 64 weeks to fulfill. after which you would be entirely free and clear of any obligation to them. Any further work that you do for them would have to be paid according to wage laws.
It's my understanding with retainers, or at least certain classes of them, is that if a person is on retainer and their retainer happens to be sizable enough that the demand of work to be done will not exhaust the retainer at the agreed rate of pay, no further payment is required... the portion of the retainer so worked for thus falling into the category of advance payment after they have worked for it, and also diminishing the amount of the remaining retainer.
And if the bank called after that time, with a problem big enough that it requires on-site presence for several days, the employee may have trouble getting enough vacation days from his newer employer to cover that.
Interfering with other employment negates any notion of "reasonably available", and is even explicitly stated in the contract that availability shall not be expected to extend to that level. The contract also says that any costs incurred by the employee to fulfill the obligation of being available would have to be covered by the employer, so if you moved to another state, they would have to pay to fly you in and back.... and they would still have to time such a trip that you do not miss any work.
I am the only person on this planet that knows my pin. If somebody steals my card, they don't have my pin. If somebody should steal my pin, they still don't have my card. Both are required to fake a transaction. Duplicating the magstripe on my card is insufficient because most places accept chipped cards, and if a magstripe duplicate of my card were placed in such a machine, it would indicate that the transaction must be completed with the chip, not the magstripe. They would, therefore, have to forge the chip, which requires having a silicon fabrication facility at a bare *minimum*.
So it's not a retainer, it's a pre-payment for work.
No it is not, because pre-payment for work must be repaid if the work is not done. You are right that it is a lot like pre-payment for work, but in this case, it acts like a retainer in the sense that they receive it whether or not they *actually* do any further work.
Slashdot Mirror
I believe that trademark does allow creation of something that imitates the style of the trademark for purpose of satire or parody, but I think it may still necessary for it to somehow be distinctive. I'm more familiar with copyright law than trademark, to be honest... but IANAL, so standard disclaimers apply. Ultimately, everything I've said is true to only the best of my understanding and knowledge.
Mickey Mouse is trademarked, and those trademark protections last into perpetuity... or until Disney stops defending the trademark (ie, into perpetuity). Steamboat Willy, a Mickey Mouse cartoon, is already public domain in some international jurisdictions, but the trademark is still valid. What that means in those jurisdictions, and in the US, if Disney does eventually allow the copyright to expire, is that although Mickey Mouse is trademarked, the work can be freely copied and distributed in and among those jurisdictions, as well as even have derivative works made from it, so long as any derivative works do not use the trademarked Mickey Mouse character. Actual copies of the cartoon are not considered misappropriation of the Mickey Mouse trademark because Mickey Mouse was obviously used with permission in that work.
Right.... and like I said, it would require some work to make happen.
My point being that it's not at all impossible
The nutrient levels in martian soil are lower than on earth, but they are not zero. With some work, which Damon's character does in the film, it is not inconceivable for someone with sufficient botanical skill to accomplish what he does... (although I do suspect it would take more effort than what the film depicted).
How he eats *IS* addressed in the film. Although I will admit that they did seem to gloss over where he was getting all of his oxygen from.
Is it still perjury if being wrong about one's claim is a matter of incompetence, and not intentional dishonesty? Seems like that's the case here... Sony *should* have known that their claim against the person they licensed it from was not infringing, but for whatever reason they didn't.
I realize I'm probably preaching to the choir by commenting here, but the nytimes page linked to had no comment section, or else I would have said something there. But I really wish that people, and especially the media, would stop referring to this sort of thing as a hologram. It's called "pepper's ghost", it's a well-known illusion, and is not anything remotely like a hologram.
Why? Was a physicist going to milk them?
Low poly, or high poly?
Stuff like this matters.... you need to be more specific.
The problem with being prosecuted him for saying this under the category of hate speech is that the court would have to explicitly acknowledge that Satan even exists. Otherwise, this is just somebody expressing their opinion, and has no bearing on reality.
Citation please, or I call bullshit.
If it is locked via password and they have physical access to the device, they could theoretically still brute force the password, although this may take a while.
Impossible means something different from what Apple is claiming.
A method called collectAllCustomers should not require a comment explaining *what* it does. What the method does should be transparently obvious from the name. Ideally, how it goes about this should be equally transparently obvious from the code itself by keeping the method concise, and using well named identifiers.
Except that never actually happens on any project more complex than a school programming assignment.
Code says what actually happens, not comments. At best, code can only break promises that moment make, but intThe end such comments are still ultimately lying, even if through no fault of their own.
The only way the code can lie while the comments tell the truth is if the computer executes the comments and not the code. Hmmm reminds me of COBOL.
I hate to break it to you, but that never really happens. Further, code says what is *actually* happening. Comments can indicate intent, but intent means zilch if you don't actually go and do it. Code cannot lie... At most it can only fail to fulfill the expected requirements,
Which is easier to read?
n = a.subtract(b).multiply(c.subtract(d))
or
n = (a - b) * (c - d)
If you seriously think that the first one is more readable than the second one, then consider this.... do the 'subtract' and 'multiply' methods modify the contents of their class instance, or would it have been better to name it 'minus' and 'times'? The naming of the methods the former way strongly implies that it modifies the instance, and this will not be clear to a reader who is expecting the code to simply say what it doing in a clear and unambiguous way.
Yes, I will certainly agree that operator overloading generally only makes much sense in very mathematical contexts such as what I have given above (I have often cursed Stroustrup for setting a bad example in the early C++ days by overloading the bitshift operator to do I/O.... convenient, sure.... but completely counterintuitive to the normal meaning of the operator). I would argue, however, that since programing *IS* math, this kind of thing happens a lot. And since are infinitely more mathematical types than just what programming languages might offer built in (complex, vector, quaternion, matrix, and many many more,)... for vectors and matrices, there are often performance considerations to using a general class as opposed to one that is optimized for a data structure of a specific size, so there are infinite variations on just those two particular data types.
The biggest problem with operator overloading is that it is abused by programmers as a shorthand for something that has nothing to do with what the operator ordinarily means (eg, > in C++), but I strongly argue that suggesting that it has no place in programming because of that is akin to suggesting that programmers should not be allowed to choose their own identifiers on variables or functions names on account that they might also be misleading or cryptic.
By far, the single biggest problem with comments is that they lie.
Someone write the comment, and then the code later evolves and changes, and a programmer forgets to update the comment. This happens *ALL OF THE FUCKING TIME*. While some types of comments, such as dOxygen or javadoc may be able to peform very rudimentary verifications that the code has not changed beyond what the particular formatted comment would describe, it is not possible possible to for a compiler to generally verify that a particular comment still carries the same meaning that it did about the code when it was first written. A wrong comment is orders of magnitude worse in terms of the costs to productivity than no comment at all.
Writing good comments, therefore, is a discipline that is arguably harder than programming itself... since one must not only have the discipline to program in the first place, but must also maintain the discipline of keeping the documentation up-to-date and informative.
Your example for #2 is only generally practicable if you want your comments to be compiled by a COBOL compiler.
Fortunately, there's such a thing as arbitration in employee/employer disputes, and it is their definition of "reasonable" that ultimately matters, not the employer's. Having actually had a share of such disputes in my lifetime, I can fairly confidently state that barring highly unusual circumstances, the equating to severance to a rate of pay over a period of time would *NEVER* evaluate to any less than the rate of pay at the time of termination. This is based on anecdotal evidence, however, and should not be construed as legal advice.
Well, at 8 weeks pay, you are being paid for 320 hours of work, which at 5 hours per week would actually take only 64 weeks to fulfill. after which you would be entirely free and clear of any obligation to them. Any further work that you do for them would have to be paid according to wage laws.
It's my understanding with retainers, or at least certain classes of them, is that if a person is on retainer and their retainer happens to be sizable enough that the demand of work to be done will not exhaust the retainer at the agreed rate of pay, no further payment is required... the portion of the retainer so worked for thus falling into the category of advance payment after they have worked for it, and also diminishing the amount of the remaining retainer.
Interfering with other employment negates any notion of "reasonably available", and is even explicitly stated in the contract that availability shall not be expected to extend to that level. The contract also says that any costs incurred by the employee to fulfill the obligation of being available would have to be covered by the employer, so if you moved to another state, they would have to pay to fly you in and back.... and they would still have to time such a trip that you do not miss any work.
I am the only person on this planet that knows my pin. If somebody steals my card, they don't have my pin. If somebody should steal my pin, they still don't have my card. Both are required to fake a transaction. Duplicating the magstripe on my card is insufficient because most places accept chipped cards, and if a magstripe duplicate of my card were placed in such a machine, it would indicate that the transaction must be completed with the chip, not the magstripe. They would, therefore, have to forge the chip, which requires having a silicon fabrication facility at a bare *minimum*.
No it is not, because pre-payment for work must be repaid if the work is not done. You are right that it is a lot like pre-payment for work, but in this case, it acts like a retainer in the sense that they receive it whether or not they *actually* do any further work.