Scents are a very subjective thing. Surely too sujective to be able to trademark? The same applies to taste.
The point of a trademark is to be something which readily distinguishes your product. I don't see how a scent can do that - our [human] sense of smell is just not refined enough to distinguish a scent well enough for it to be instantly connected to a product.
Just my two scents worth... (sorry - couldn't resist it!)
This proves the point about adding complexity to a system.
The most secure systems are generally speaking, the simplest. It should be obvious that the fewer things a system has to do, and the fewer ways of doing those things, the less chance there is for there to be a security hole (or any other kind of flaw).
Obviously, some for applications it's better to have some 'more-than-one-way-to-do-it'. Firewalls do not fall into this category.
A Firewall should be there for one purpose, and one purpose only: to control access to a network. Adding features like cyberpatrol was asking for trouble. If you want cyberpatrol software, install it seperately, behind the firewall, so that they can't interfere with each other.
"Ham Radio" is a new station broadcasting to animal farms in GeorgeOrwell-Land, aiming at the newly liberated pig population.
They broadcast a variety of programs, ranging from music (mostly miliary marches) to news (mostly porcine propoganda).
All animals are permitted to listen to it, but since it's shows consist entirely of grunts in pig language, only pigs are actually able to understand any of it...
I'll stand with everyone else, and congratulate the EU for taking this step (I mean come on; everyone uses this encryption anyway, so why bother restricting it?), but remember that we've only just been discussing another EU-based free speech story, with France and Yahoo.
The same issue come out in both these stories: any one country doesn't really have any hope of controlling the internet; the conflicts of interest between even two friendly countries are always going to be huge.
The internet is going to break the world's localised govermental control system real soon now. Whether that's a good thing or not remains to be seen.
The one question the tech-geeks who invent these new gadgets always forget to ask is "So what?"
I forget who's quote that is, but it definitely holds true here. Okay, so this is another case of digital convergence (uh-oh - buzzword alert!), but will it really improve my life?
If I want MP3s, I'll buy an MP3 player. It'll have more storage space for my songs than this phone, it'll probably be easier to use (just press play, rather than scroll through the phone's menus, pick the mp3 option, then pick a song...), and best of all, a normal MP3 player won't microwave my brain if I listen to it too long.
I read your comments thoughtfully, but I have to respond. Your comments are perfectly valid, but they don't address the root issue here. The problem isn't Nazism and whether it's right or not; this is a much deeper problem.
This is a fundamental problem of the internet's complete disregard for national borders. Anything which is legal in one country but on in another will suffer from the same problem. In Europe, for example, it is legal to reverse-engineer software for the purpose of creating something compatible with it; this is not legal in the US. In many countries, it is illegal to say things against the national religion or government. These countries also have internet access; what would you say if your Christianity page was taken off-line by your local ISP because it was illegal to say such things in Saudi Ariabia for example? Tolerance would be a great thing, but sadly this is one thing that the majority of human beings seem to lack, even in countries which claim to embrace it.
I guess the bottom line here is that no matter what is on your web site, it is the choice of the individual user whether or not to go to your site (assuming you're not engaging in false or trick advertising methods). It must surely be the responsibility of that individual if they use their choice to break the local laws.
It wasn't that long ago that Real was a company that would have been supported in places like/. They were a small company fighting to stop Microsoft from taking over the straming media market.
But now they seem to be playing the same game as other grown-up corporates. It's a shame, but I guess this is what happens when a young company grows up. Here's hoping the same never happens to Andover or Slashdot!
The web changes, as we all know, at a blindingly fast rate.
Are the basic rules for good design the same now as the have always been? And are they likely to remain the same.
Technology changes, but do the rules for making good use of the technology also change, or are there at least some rules that you would say are pretty much cast in stone? If so, what?
As I understand it, MS's reasoning is that under the new law, it's illegal to a) circumvent the licence, b) explain how to circumvent the licence, and c) produce software ('tools') that allow others to circumvent the licence.
Focusing on point (c) for a moment: Does this mean that as soon as this licencing agreement was written, WinZip (and other zip extraction tools that can bypass the licencing acceptance code) suddenly became illegal?
Okay. So they've run out of.coms. Easy answer: set up a new top level domain.
Nope. Sorry, it won't work. The trouble here is that all those companies with.com or.co.uk or.de addresses already will simply buy the equivalent.eu address as well. Once the initial buying boom has settled, all the same names will be taken by the same companies for the same sites. The only difference will be that all the DNS servers around the world will need an upgrade.
The solution is not to set up more and more geographical domains. Consider: The only people who really want those (rather than.com) are organisations which are geographically fixed, but the internet's biggest asset is the way it breaks down geographical boundaries.
The solution is to have type-based domains, rather than locality-based. We already see this with.org, and such. The newly liberated.tv would have been another good step in the right direction if they hadn't gotten greedy (although I think your average tv company can afford it). Now we need things like.fun,.shop,.news, and so on.
If you used the same "file format" as outlook - i.e. embeddable VB script and fully supported that format, then you'd run the script and presumably suffer the bug.
That's not really what I was getting at.
My point is that if we have a variety of systems in use, scripts like this wouldn't be so effective. Firstly, you'd have different security measures to get through, so a hostile program would have a harder time breaking the system. Secondly, different apps/OS's would have different APIs, so that even if the scripting language was the same, the calls a script would have to make to that app/OS would be different to the others, so a script that works on one system wouldn't on another.
My point about compatible file formats was to counter the biggest reason why people resist switching software or OS, which is that they're afraid they won't be able to communicate with people. The ideal solution would be to use something like XML, which is standardised and open enough to be used by any application, but flexible enough for apps to use it as their primary file format. If all apps could load the same document files, (without the loss of data you get currently loading say a Word doc into Wordperfect), we would have a much improved situation.
Fundamentally, that is the way that this whole issue of increasing competition needs to happen. Forget trying to force open software standards; it's open file formats that we need to force. Play a game of "what if all software was forced to use open file formats?" You'd no longer have a situation where people buy a package because it's what their friends/collegues/etc use - their choice would be based on personal preference. And even those of use with wacky preferences would still be able to communicate with the rest of the world.
Well, I don't know enough about the facts of the case to even begin to judge whether this person is guilty or not, so I'll leave that whole hot-potato topic alone.
BUT I do know that this whole saga has proved a point that I've been shouting about for ages: The computer world can be compared to the natural world. You need a good gene pool. If all of us had the same genetic make-up, we would get wiped out by the first new disease to come along. So why does the entire world insist on using the same software? If everyone and his dog is using MS Windows and Outlook, then of course if a virus comes along which hits that combination, everyone and his dog will be affected. The world is not a safe place if everyone uses the same thing. It doesn't matter if it's an MS app, or an open-source server, you have to have healthy competition. Diversity is the only way we can protect ourselves.
Usually, when I start off like this, people say "Oh, but I need to be compatible". I say: "You don't need to run the same software to be compatible - just use compatible file formats".
Sorry if my ranting is straying off-topic; I needed to say it.:-)
Re:Just why this is a bad idea.
on
WinDSL Coming?
·
· Score: 1
I can see your point, but I'm not sure I agree. I do agree with you that given any even semi-decent processor, it will be pretty much unnoticable on its own, but that isn't what's going to happen: The fact is that the time when these things are going to be in use is the same time when the processor will be under the heaviest strain anyway; the whole point is that these are broadband internet devices - people will want to use them for watching movies online, and so on.
Just why this is a bad idea.
on
WinDSL Coming?
·
· Score: 1
There is a very basic reason why this, and other win-software-type devices (WinPrinters being the obvious example) are bad: They're aimed at low-end users, right? But low-end users have low-end processors. So surely it's logically flawed to try to move the processing hit for the modem/printer/whatever onto your main CPU? You have less power than every one else, so you buy hardware which steals some of what power you do have. What's wrong with this picture?
This worries me also. DeCSS was written in Europe too. What exactly has to happen for the US law to come into play here? I presume it's because the software is being used in the US. Would it follow then that if CPhack had never been imported into the US, that DMCA wouldn't have any jurisdiction?
Slashdot Mirror
Scents are a very subjective thing. Surely too sujective to be able to trademark? The same applies to taste.
The point of a trademark is to be something which readily distinguishes your product. I don't see how a scent can do that - our [human] sense of smell is just not refined enough to distinguish a scent well enough for it to be instantly connected to a product.
Just my two scents worth... (sorry - couldn't resist it!)
This proves the point about adding complexity to a system.
The most secure systems are generally speaking, the simplest. It should be obvious that the fewer things a system has to do, and the fewer ways of doing those things, the less chance there is for there to be a security hole (or any other kind of flaw).
Obviously, some for applications it's better to have some 'more-than-one-way-to-do-it'. Firewalls do not fall into this category.
A Firewall should be there for one purpose, and one purpose only: to control access to a network. Adding features like cyberpatrol was asking for trouble. If you want cyberpatrol software, install it seperately, behind the firewall, so that they can't interfere with each other.
In that case, it should be "beef radio", not ham.
.moo domain name!!! buwahahahaha!
I want me a
[joke]
"Ham Radio" is a new station broadcasting to animal farms in GeorgeOrwell-Land, aiming at the newly liberated pig population.
They broadcast a variety of programs, ranging from music (mostly miliary marches) to news (mostly porcine propoganda).
All animals are permitted to listen to it, but since it's shows consist entirely of grunts in pig language, only pigs are actually able to understand any of it...
I'll stand with everyone else, and congratulate the EU for taking this step (I mean come on; everyone uses this encryption anyway, so why bother restricting it?), but remember that we've only just been discussing another EU-based free speech story, with France and Yahoo.
The same issue come out in both these stories: any one country doesn't really have any hope of controlling the internet; the conflicts of interest between even two friendly countries are always going to be huge.
The internet is going to break the world's localised govermental control system real soon now. Whether that's a good thing or not remains to be seen.
The one question the tech-geeks who invent these new gadgets always forget to ask is "So what?"
I forget who's quote that is, but it definitely holds true here. Okay, so this is another case of digital convergence (uh-oh - buzzword alert!), but will it really improve my life?
If I want MP3s, I'll buy an MP3 player. It'll have more storage space for my songs than this phone, it'll probably be easier to use (just press play, rather than scroll through the phone's menus, pick the mp3 option, then pick a song...), and best of all, a normal MP3 player won't microwave my brain if I listen to it too long.
I read your comments thoughtfully, but I have to respond.
Your comments are perfectly valid, but they don't address the root issue here. The problem isn't Nazism and whether it's right or not; this is a much deeper problem.
This is a fundamental problem of the internet's complete disregard for national borders. Anything which is legal in one country but on in another will suffer from the same problem.
In Europe, for example, it is legal to reverse-engineer software for the purpose of creating something compatible with it; this is not legal in the US. In many countries, it is illegal to say things against the national religion or government. These countries also have internet access; what would you say if your Christianity page was taken off-line by your local ISP because it was illegal to say such things in Saudi Ariabia for example?
Tolerance would be a great thing, but sadly this is one thing that the majority of human beings seem to lack, even in countries which claim to embrace it.
I guess the bottom line here is that no matter what is on your web site, it is the choice of the individual user whether or not to go to your site (assuming you're not engaging in false or trick advertising methods). It must surely be the responsibility of that individual if they use their choice to break the local laws.
It wasn't that long ago that Real was a company that would have been supported in places like /. They were a small company fighting to stop Microsoft from taking over the straming media market.
But now they seem to be playing the same game as other grown-up corporates. It's a shame, but I guess this is what happens when a young company grows up. Here's hoping the same never happens to Andover or Slashdot!
The web changes, as we all know, at a blindingly fast rate.
Are the basic rules for good design the same now as the have always been? And are they likely to remain the same.
Technology changes, but do the rules for making good use of the technology also change, or are there at least some rules that you would say are pretty much cast in stone? If so, what?
As I understand it, MS's reasoning is that under the new law, it's illegal to a) circumvent the licence, b) explain how to circumvent the licence, and c) produce software ('tools') that allow others to circumvent the licence.
Focusing on point (c) for a moment: Does this mean that as soon as this licencing agreement was written, WinZip (and other zip extraction tools that can bypass the licencing acceptance code) suddenly became illegal?
Okay. So they've run out of .coms. Easy answer: set up a new top level domain.
.com or .co.uk or .de addresses already will simply buy the equivalent .eu address as well. Once the initial buying boom has settled, all the same names will be taken by the same companies for the same sites. The only difference will be that all the DNS servers around the world will need an upgrade.
.com) are organisations which are geographically fixed, but the internet's biggest asset is the way it breaks down geographical boundaries.
.org, and such. The newly liberated .tv would have been another good step in the right direction if they hadn't gotten greedy (although I think your average tv company can afford it). Now we need things like .fun, .shop, .news, and so on.
Nope. Sorry, it won't work.
The trouble here is that all those companies with
The solution is not to set up more and more geographical domains. Consider: The only people who really want those (rather than
The solution is to have type-based domains, rather than locality-based. We already see this with
That's not really what I was getting at.
My point is that if we have a variety of systems in use, scripts like this wouldn't be so effective. Firstly, you'd have different security measures to get through, so a hostile program would have a harder time breaking the system. Secondly, different apps/OS's would have different APIs, so that even if the scripting language was the same, the calls a script would have to make to that app/OS would be different to the others, so a script that works on one system wouldn't on another.
My point about compatible file formats was to counter the biggest reason why people resist switching software or OS, which is that they're afraid they won't be able to communicate with people.
The ideal solution would be to use something like XML, which is standardised and open enough to be used by any application, but flexible enough for apps to use it as their primary file format.
If all apps could load the same document files, (without the loss of data you get currently loading say a Word doc into Wordperfect), we would have a much improved situation.
Fundamentally, that is the way that this whole issue of increasing competition needs to happen. Forget trying to force open software standards; it's open file formats that we need to force. Play a game of "what if all software was forced to use open file formats?" You'd no longer have a situation where people buy a package because it's what their friends/collegues/etc use - their choice would be based on personal preference. And even those of use with wacky preferences would still be able to communicate with the rest of the world.
IMO, I think MS should never have released Visual Basic, let alone documentation for it... :-)
But this is probably a topic best left for another day.
Well, I don't know enough about the facts of the case to even begin to judge whether this person is guilty or not, so I'll leave that whole hot-potato topic alone.
:-)
BUT I do know that this whole saga has proved a point that I've been shouting about for ages:
The computer world can be compared to the natural world. You need a good gene pool. If all of us had the same genetic make-up, we would get wiped out by the first new disease to come along. So why does the entire world insist on using the same software?
If everyone and his dog is using MS Windows and Outlook, then of course if a virus comes along which hits that combination, everyone and his dog will be affected.
The world is not a safe place if everyone uses the same thing. It doesn't matter if it's an MS app, or an open-source server, you have to have healthy competition. Diversity is the only way we can protect ourselves.
Usually, when I start off like this, people say "Oh, but I need to be compatible".
I say: "You don't need to run the same software to be compatible - just use compatible file formats".
Sorry if my ranting is straying off-topic; I needed to say it.
I can see your point, but I'm not sure I agree. I do agree with you that given any even semi-decent processor, it will be pretty much unnoticable on its own, but that isn't what's going to happen: The fact is that the time when these things are going to be in use is the same time when the processor will be under the heaviest strain anyway; the whole point is that these are broadband internet devices - people will want to use them for watching movies online, and so on.
There is a very basic reason why this, and other win-software-type devices (WinPrinters being the obvious example) are bad: They're aimed at low-end users, right? But low-end users have low-end processors. So surely it's logically flawed to try to move the processing hit for the modem/printer/whatever onto your main CPU? You have less power than every one else, so you buy hardware which steals some of what power you do have. What's wrong with this picture?
There's quite a lot more than just the password and global.asa in the file....
I always wondered how he managed to stretch this short story to a thousand pages :)
Completely agreed. Those 1000-odd pages took me less time to read than most normal 250 page books. Quite impressive.
I think this story does lend itself to being made into a movie, though. It reads almost as if it's written with the movie in mind (it probably was?).
This worries me also. DeCSS was written in Europe too.
What exactly has to happen for the US law to come into play here? I presume it's because the software is being used in the US. Would it follow then that if CPhack had never been imported into the US, that DMCA wouldn't have any jurisdiction?