I would love for, say Red Hat to go in and fake negotiations with Microsoft, just to get access to their list.
Unfortunately, I bet that list is covered by some NDA signed at the beginning of negotiations, which Red Hat would then honor. But all it takes is one person to leak the list...
I suspect that the negotiations themselves were covered by some NDA to prevent their list of patents from being released.
Whether or not Linux actually infringes any patents is a moot point as long as the list is kept secret: as long as nobody knows what the list is, FUD works well; once it's released, the list will be shredded to pieces right here on slashdot.
Is there any specific reason you think that the ruling will go that way? I'm not familiar with the supreme court (it seems to me it leans slightly to the right of center, most of the time, but what do I know) and its past rulings, but I haven't seen anything that would make me think it would rule one way or the other.
But I want to go to classes with my e-reader and some paper, instead of my body weight in textbooks (which I may or may not need that day). I don't care about "enhanced content" (who actually uses the CD that comes with hardcover textbooks?).. just give me a note-taking application, a good calculator and possibly access to my email.
I'd even be willing to spend over $200 if it could replace my textbooks (which can cost that much to begin with). It weighs less and the books are less costly to produce. Add in internet access and note-taking capabilities and I'd spend much more.
Unfortunately, the textbooks that my classes used simply aren't available electronically.
Fly-by-wire is a necessity for modern aircraft: an airplane (see most flying wing designs, for examples) is simply way to unstable otherwise.
Cars, however, are a different story. While aircraft need the electronics to stay in the air, a car only needs it for unnecessary but still worthwhile features (which others have mentioned in this thread).
If implemented correctly, drive-by-wire should be as safe (and probably more safe) than a purely mechanical system. On the other hand, I would never drive a car with any code supplied by some programmers I've worked with (including myself).
No matter how complicated or buggy the computer part is, a system can be set up so a simple switch can stop everything.
My car has two such switches: the ignition and neutral!
Jesting aside, it's far easier for systems engineers to assume that something will "just work" and forget about those cases when it doesn't. It's exactly this sort of incident that will make people think about having automatic failsafes, even if they should never be used in theory. Unfortunately, we're talking about funerals so the cost of an oversight is very high.
You don't have a right to high property values. Period. And you know it.
So what gives someone else the right to harm me (and everyone else in the community) financially? The right isn't to have "high property values" (although that's what many want), but it is a right against harm from another person.
The city and county, however, do have an interest in preserving high property values: the more the property is worth, the more they make on taxes. I personally think that's why the laws get so absurd (and many of them are): the government will do anything for a larger income without actually increasing tax rates.
This needs to be modded up, I think. Don't be deterred by the long words.
The "externality" is simply the fact that my actions can cost other people money at no or little cost to myself. In an ideal world, it would be fine for someone to use his house as a landfill site, as long as he pays everyone else the difference in cost to their own property. Instead, however, we just make such things illegal and make life simpler.
Call it a consequence of living so close together.
Here's a viewpoint that's woefully underrepresented on slashdot right now.
While I don't agree with the level of regulation that currently exists (see most any HOA rule, for example), there is most certainly a need to acknowledge just how much the actions of one affect the lives of others. This goes way beyond just common argument of property values.
Let's turn the tables a bit. What if the city code required xeriscaping your lawn, prohibiting types and number of plants? Here's a rule that many won't like (green grass is seen by some to be a status symbol of sorts, for one). Why should anyone dictate what I can and cannot grow on my property?
But collectively, such a regulation would be to the benefit of the community, at least when it comes to water usage. Disallowing xeriscaping has a different goal for the community. Will everyone benefit from a more uniform decor? Will the neighborhood be more pleasant to visit? Will property values rise? Will it decrease landscaping costs for everyone?
I don't know the answers to those questions, but the point is that the community decided that requiring a green lawn was collectively important. If you feel that is not the case, feel free to change the local law -- that's much easier than at the state or federal level.
Exactly! We need a guy that can go around and enforce our lawn laws! That would force these no-good environmentalists to stop destroying our beloved property values!
My HOA disallows backyard clotheslines. Obviously, that "logic" is terrible.
However, I think the true reasoning is something more akin to what is going on from TFA: some people want to look out their windows and not see a trashy neighborhood.
I think they see clotheslines or drying clothes ugly and invading their view. I live in a hilly neighborhood with two-story buildings: back yards aren't very private. "I don't care that it's in someone else's yard: I still have to look at it!" It's not the perception of wealth that makes the difference here, at least not directly.
Front yards are even less private. The people who think that nobody else should have ugly clothes lines also think that Xeriscaping is ugly and should be illegal. I personally think that Xeriscaping can be done very beautifully (and possibly even within the laws in question). At the same time, grass laws can become very ugly very easily (by not watering or mowing).
Notice that there's a whole lot of other restrictions that still make it impossible for most people (anybody in the city, for example... but my parents had a property that this could apply to), and you still can't use the water for gardens.
Another law is allowing for ten pilot project communities where rainwater collection will be allowed.
I was stumped as to why one would want direct access to the drive like that, until I read your post. Thank you.
But I also agree that this is just about impossible, depending on what he's trying to do. There's no way he can control the heads of the disk: too many layers of abstraction exist between the user and the hardware. But it should be possible to control where data is placed on the disk: this is what disk defragmentation does, after all.
But even then I'm not sure that what the device reports is necessarily what happens on the platters. Flash memory drives, for example, relocate information to balance the number of writes and extend the life of the drive.
I would recommend contacting the drive manufacturer and then making my own block device driver for Linux based on their recommendations. But even then I'd question the core reasoning: is this really, really necessary?
Just now, for the first time in my life, I pressed F1 in Windows on purpose.
Lots of interesting information is in there, and I even learned a few things (I didn't know XP had a private character editor). But I don't know anybody who uses the windows help system on purpose.
Putting all the pieces together in a new configuration is just engineering, it isn't necessarily innovation and it isn't patent worthy
Unless, of course, the method of connecting the two isn't obvious, in which case there could be something patentable. However, IANAL (especially not a patent lawyer), so I can't decipher this specific patent.
What hardware and software innovations would be required to interconnect a rotatable screen and a touch interface? What about features and possibilities that this pairing introduces, that might then be covered by a patent?
Some people browse the web so carelessly that it's like sleeping with every hooker on the street: you're guaranteed to pick up a virus eventually with that kind of behavior.
On the other hand, there are those rare times that a virus attacks a "safe" site, almost like your wife of 30 years getting infected from a blood transfusion and passing it on to you unknowingly.
Unfortunately, teaching safe browsing habits to the general public is just as effective as teaching safe sex to teenagers.
Slashdot Mirror
I would love for, say Red Hat to go in and fake negotiations with Microsoft, just to get access to their list.
Unfortunately, I bet that list is covered by some NDA signed at the beginning of negotiations, which Red Hat would then honor. But all it takes is one person to leak the list...
I suspect that the negotiations themselves were covered by some NDA to prevent their list of patents from being released.
Whether or not Linux actually infringes any patents is a moot point as long as the list is kept secret: as long as nobody knows what the list is, FUD works well; once it's released, the list will be shredded to pieces right here on slashdot.
Is there any specific reason you think that the ruling will go that way? I'm not familiar with the supreme court (it seems to me it leans slightly to the right of center, most of the time, but what do I know) and its past rulings, but I haven't seen anything that would make me think it would rule one way or the other.
I thought IE6 was already deprecated?
Oh, right. Decapitated! Sorry about that.
I think IE6's ghost will be haunting us for quite a while.
Anybody got a proton pack handy?
Uh, oh ... a stake won't work! From the article:
"It's going to be a hard sucker to kill," Siegler wrote in a recent post. "But at least a funeral will provide some closure until we find the body."
For pleasure-reading, I completely agree.
But I want to go to classes with my e-reader and some paper, instead of my body weight in textbooks (which I may or may not need that day). I don't care about "enhanced content" (who actually uses the CD that comes with hardcover textbooks?) .. just give me a note-taking application, a good calculator and possibly access to my email.
I'd even be willing to spend over $200 if it could replace my textbooks (which can cost that much to begin with). It weighs less and the books are less costly to produce. Add in internet access and note-taking capabilities and I'd spend much more.
Unfortunately, the textbooks that my classes used simply aren't available electronically.
Fly-by-wire is a necessity for modern aircraft: an airplane (see most flying wing designs, for examples) is simply way to unstable otherwise.
Cars, however, are a different story. While aircraft need the electronics to stay in the air, a car only needs it for unnecessary but still worthwhile features (which others have mentioned in this thread).
If implemented correctly, drive-by-wire should be as safe (and probably more safe) than a purely mechanical system. On the other hand, I would never drive a car with any code supplied by some programmers I've worked with (including myself).
No matter how complicated or buggy the computer part is, a system can be set up so a simple switch can stop everything.
My car has two such switches: the ignition and neutral!
Jesting aside, it's far easier for systems engineers to assume that something will "just work" and forget about those cases when it doesn't. It's exactly this sort of incident that will make people think about having automatic failsafes, even if they should never be used in theory. Unfortunately, we're talking about funerals so the cost of an oversight is very high.
You don't have a right to high property values. Period. And you know it.
So what gives someone else the right to harm me (and everyone else in the community) financially? The right isn't to have "high property values" (although that's what many want), but it is a right against harm from another person.
The city and county, however, do have an interest in preserving high property values: the more the property is worth, the more they make on taxes. I personally think that's why the laws get so absurd (and many of them are): the government will do anything for a larger income without actually increasing tax rates.
This needs to be modded up, I think. Don't be deterred by the long words.
The "externality" is simply the fact that my actions can cost other people money at no or little cost to myself. In an ideal world, it would be fine for someone to use his house as a landfill site, as long as he pays everyone else the difference in cost to their own property. Instead, however, we just make such things illegal and make life simpler.
Call it a consequence of living so close together.
Here's a viewpoint that's woefully underrepresented on slashdot right now.
While I don't agree with the level of regulation that currently exists (see most any HOA rule, for example), there is most certainly a need to acknowledge just how much the actions of one affect the lives of others. This goes way beyond just common argument of property values.
Let's turn the tables a bit. What if the city code required xeriscaping your lawn, prohibiting types and number of plants? Here's a rule that many won't like (green grass is seen by some to be a status symbol of sorts, for one). Why should anyone dictate what I can and cannot grow on my property?
But collectively, such a regulation would be to the benefit of the community, at least when it comes to water usage. Disallowing xeriscaping has a different goal for the community. Will everyone benefit from a more uniform decor? Will the neighborhood be more pleasant to visit? Will property values rise? Will it decrease landscaping costs for everyone?
I don't know the answers to those questions, but the point is that the community decided that requiring a green lawn was collectively important. If you feel that is not the case, feel free to change the local law -- that's much easier than at the state or federal level.
Exactly! We need a guy that can go around and enforce our lawn laws! That would force these no-good environmentalists to stop destroying our beloved property values!
My HOA disallows backyard clotheslines. Obviously, that "logic" is terrible.
However, I think the true reasoning is something more akin to what is going on from TFA: some people want to look out their windows and not see a trashy neighborhood.
I think they see clotheslines or drying clothes ugly and invading their view. I live in a hilly neighborhood with two-story buildings: back yards aren't very private. "I don't care that it's in someone else's yard: I still have to look at it!" It's not the perception of wealth that makes the difference here, at least not directly.
Front yards are even less private. The people who think that nobody else should have ugly clothes lines also think that Xeriscaping is ugly and should be illegal. I personally think that Xeriscaping can be done very beautifully (and possibly even within the laws in question). At the same time, grass laws can become very ugly very easily (by not watering or mowing).
The law in Colorado is changing, however:
http://www.water.state.co.us/pubs/pdf/RainWaterBills.pdf
Notice that there's a whole lot of other restrictions that still make it impossible for most people (anybody in the city, for example ... but my parents had a property that this could apply to), and you still can't use the water for gardens.
Another law is allowing for ten pilot project communities where rainwater collection will be allowed.
I was stumped as to why one would want direct access to the drive like that, until I read your post. Thank you.
But I also agree that this is just about impossible, depending on what he's trying to do. There's no way he can control the heads of the disk: too many layers of abstraction exist between the user and the hardware. But it should be possible to control where data is placed on the disk: this is what disk defragmentation does, after all.
But even then I'm not sure that what the device reports is necessarily what happens on the platters. Flash memory drives, for example, relocate information to balance the number of writes and extend the life of the drive.
I would recommend contacting the drive manufacturer and then making my own block device driver for Linux based on their recommendations. But even then I'd question the core reasoning: is this really, really necessary?
Just now, for the first time in my life, I pressed F1 in Windows on purpose.
Lots of interesting information is in there, and I even learned a few things (I didn't know XP had a private character editor). But I don't know anybody who uses the windows help system on purpose.
Google already provides good help for Windows.
Putting all the pieces together in a new configuration is just engineering, it isn't necessarily innovation and it isn't patent worthy
Unless, of course, the method of connecting the two isn't obvious, in which case there could be something patentable. However, IANAL (especially not a patent lawyer), so I can't decipher this specific patent.
What hardware and software innovations would be required to interconnect a rotatable screen and a touch interface? What about features and possibilities that this pairing introduces, that might then be covered by a patent?
Some people browse the web so carelessly that it's like sleeping with every hooker on the street: you're guaranteed to pick up a virus eventually with that kind of behavior.
On the other hand, there are those rare times that a virus attacks a "safe" site, almost like your wife of 30 years getting infected from a blood transfusion and passing it on to you unknowingly.
Unfortunately, teaching safe browsing habits to the general public is just as effective as teaching safe sex to teenagers.