Card was a Mormon missionary in Brazil. His understanding of the Brazilian culture and Portuguese language is 100x that of most Americans, but probably rather limited, since he only lived there for a couple years and had limited contact outside the missionary life.
Also, give a little bit of slack... Speaker takes place a couple thousand years in the future. The more accurate depiction of the Brazilian culture, the less believable it would probably be.
BTW, just to understand your perspective, are you Brazilian? Or at least from South America? If so, I thank you for the insight. Otherwise...
I'm a data point against your initial claim. I bought a 7" for two reasons: portability and price. Almost everyone else I've talked to has said the same thing.
Once you move outside of Slashdot, it's amazing how few fanbois there are out there.
Which is why the 7" size is perfect for the parent of a toddler. Need to run after them before they break or spill something? Just slip it in your pocket and go!
I put my Nexus 7 in my jacket pocket all the time, even with a case. Fits well in my suit jacket, even, and you can't really tell that it's there, visually. Yes, it's a bit heavy, but you get used to it. It also fits in the front pocket of some of my pants.
Pluto, Makemake, and Haumea are now officially designated "Plutoids"... I think the rule there is to name them after various gods of creation. Pluto is, of course, an exception due to history.
Moons in general have various naming schemes. Take Uranus, for example, where many moons are named after characters from Shakespeare's plays, of all things.
The moons of Pluto have so far been named after things associated with Pluto. I know of nothing that associates Vulcan with Pluto, however, other than his connection with fire... which Christians associate with the underworld. Whoops.
The Library of Congress is under the Legislative Branch, yes. But is the Librarian?
The Librarian of Congress is sometimes seen as an "Executive branch official" since the President makes the appointment. On the other hand, the President has no authority to remove the Librarian from office. I don't think there's an official procedure for doing so, short of an act of Congress.
So, who's your boss? The one who hired you, or the one who can fire you? It seems that, in the case of the Librarian of Congress, this issue hasn't been resolved quite yet. I doubt Obama will push the issue.
Interestingly, there have been a few calls over time to formally move the Library to the Executive branch, but that so far hasn't happened.
From the first link (which is sometimes strongly in favor of fair-use, interestingly):
When the 44th President of the United States assumes office in January 2009, Billington, the 13th Librarian of Congress, will be but four months away from his 80th birthday. If he is still serving, Billington will be the oldest person to hold that office since it was created in 1802. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that due to retirement, politics or both, interested communities may want to think about leadership requirements for the next Librarian of Congress.
In our time, the technology environment has evolved rapidly, and libraries around the world have been among the leading public institutions to transform themselves to meet new demands. The Library of Congress is no exception. Its future leaders will continue to grapple with the demands of collecting, preserving, and making accessible precious analog and digital materials, some of which may be available nowhere else in the world.
As others point out, you're not making sense. But here's an alternative...
A gene that would prevent pollen production would be helpful. Then, the modified genes won't be able to spread to neighboring crops at all. Even a reduction in pollen would potentially make a difference.
Of course, now I'm the one talking nonsense. Without pollination, the crop won't produce anything at all.
So, here's a more viable option, looking at wheat for an example. Maybe engineer the pollen with some sort of defect so it can't spread as easily in the wind. Wheat self-pollinates, often before the flowers have a chance to even open, so hopefully this defect would allow self-pollination but not cross-pollination.
How do you prevent pollen from spreading? I have no idea (make the pollen heavier?). Again, I'm probably talking nonsense. IANAF (I am not a farmer), IANAGE (I am not a genetic engineer). IANAL, too, if that makes a difference.
What nobody here seems to be talking about are refurbished items.
Manufacturers don't want other people to be able to service their devices, sure. But the manufacturer wants to be able to go into a defective item, replace the camera or whatever might have been bad, and resell it at a modest discount. But that only works if repairing costs less than just making a new one to begin with.
That's why I suspect Apple made their devices easier to repair while at the same time introducing their own proprietary "pentalobe" screw. They don't want third party repair shops to get in, but they want to make their own repairs easier.
Mark my words: the Surface Pro won't be available refurbished by the manufacturer in any significant quantity (only returns where nothing was actually wrong will get resold). Third party refurbished items will be of very shoddy quality.
I'll second that translation and your analysis. That's exactly how I read that first claim.
Let's look at that "order" and how it's updated, though. That's the only thing that could remotely be patentable about their system.
My wife worked for a wholesaler, fulfilling orders for major retailers (including Walmart). In the morning, they would go through their filing cabinet and find the periodic orders that were to be fulfilled that day. Should would write up a "pick slip" (basically the same thing as an "order" in the patent) and send it to the warehouse. If the customer called up and requested a change to their order, she would go through the pick slips, find the right one, and make the change.
So, how does that compare with the patent? Well, the first difference is that my wife did the work herself and wrote things out on paper. Amazon's patent does it with a computer and databases. The second difference is that they called it a "pick slip" instead of an "order." If there's a third difference, I'm at a loss to see it.
Amazon is, of course, doing something on the scale that nobody else has attempted. They'll probably be very good at it, and good for them.
However, that has nothing to do with the patent. The processes described by the patent are the exact same thing that people have been doing in real life on smaller scales for hundreds (or maybe even thousands), of years.
There is nothing... NOTHING... in that patent that enables them to do this on a large scale, except for the automation that a computer provides (which, unfortunately, seems to make anything patentable these days). If you disagree, please call out something specific, like an actual claim in the patent, and a description of why it's something new and not just the first and most obvious solution their engineers came up with.
Congratulations to Amazon if they pull off this scale of delivery. But what they're doing should in no way be patentable, at least not as described in the patent that was awarded.
Yeah, Slashdot has a tendency to oversimplify patents to their core idea, which always sound ridiculous. A variation on the Strawman fallacy.
Here's the problem with the implementation in this patent: it's bloody obvious. I mean, how else would you design "a computer-implemented method for providing recurring delivery of products?"
performing instructions under the control of a computer system
Well, duh. Let's use a computer.
a designation of a delivery slot and a recurring delivery list comprising one or more list items, each of the one or more list items identifying a product, a quantity to deliver, and a frequency of delivery
Ok, keep a list of what to deliver, where, and when.
periodically generating, by the computer system, an order having a date and time for delivery based on a next occurrence of the delivery slot, the order being generated in advance of the date and time for delivery such that the order has a period of time of pendency prior to the delivery; creating, by the computer system, one or more order items for the order based on a last delivery date and the frequency of delivery of each list item in the recurring delivery list;
From that list, have the computer create an order in advance of delivery.
receiving at the computer system a change made to a first list item of the recurring delivery list during the period of time of pendency of the order; in response to receiving the change, determining, by the computer system, whether the order includes an order item corresponding to the first list item; in response to determining that the order includes an order item corresponding to the first list item, modifying, by the computer system, the order item corresponding to the first list item based on the change made to the first list item of the recurring delivery list;
If I'm interpreting this right, this seems to be a question of what happens if a change is made between making the order form from that last step and delivery time. In this case, the computer makes the appropriate change. How novel.
and providing, by the computer system, the order to an order fulfillment system capable of causing the one or more order items to be delivered substantially on the date and time for delivery.
And then the computer sends the order to be fulfilled.
It seems to me that all the subsequent claims focus on that part where something changes before an order is fulfilled (change in quantity or frequency is claim 2, a hold on delivery is claim 3).
Now, don't get me wrong here. Managing all the complexities of automated deliveries can be quite complicated. Each of the claims seems to focus on one of those complexities, and shows the basic way the system integrates that feature. But, the solutions Amazon patented are the basic way anybody would go about solving this without computers.
"Someone wants more bananas, and I've already written out the order form! Oh, no! Whatever shall I do? Hmmm... let's look through the orders... yep, there it is... let me write down the new quantity. Phew! What would have done without this patent!?!"
BTW, I wouldn't be surprised if the amount of raw text in the patent exceeds the code for the logic it implements. About 15,000 words in text, or maybe a few thousand lines of code. I hate reading patents.
Forgive me for being a Brit so not really understanding what this is all about, but is it not the case that when you buy a phone in the US you are buying it for a small fraction of the actual cost (or being given it free) under the condition that you only use it on their network and hence pay for the calls to the people who subsidised the phone? That is how it works over here.
We forgive you.
You're close in how you understand this, but not quite. The condition under which subsidized phones are provided is usually a two-year contract with that carrier. The phone subsidy is repaid by the monthly fee over the life of the contract, regardless of how many phone calls are made and on which carrier. (In light of this, you would think that a carrier wouldn't mind and would even encourage making all your calls on another network, as long as you kept paying your monthly fee.)
Interestingly, the carrier lock-in is not a condition of that two-year contract, but is in the basic terms of service. Thus, it has nothing to do with the phone subsidy, at least not directly.
So, what we have is a system where the carrier offers a subsidized phone and locks the subscribers in for two years. When those two years are up, the subscriber can continue paying the same higher monthly rate, or get a new phone (and another two year contract), or switch to another carrier... but you can't bring your phone with you. But that's fine, because the other carriers also offer the same system.
So, here's where locking the phone benefits the carrier: it encourages people to stick with that carrier, paying the same monthly rate as if they were paying off a phone subsidy. It's that or lock into a contract and get a new phone every two years.
In case you're wondering... this system sucks for almost everyone but the carriers. People who want a new phone every two years (a lot of us, unfortunately) don't get hit quite as hard, but there are better systems for them, too.
I should say that there are two major exceptions to this system: prepaid phones (which work closer to your thinking) and T-Mobile (which has a reduced monthly rate if you bring your own phone or can offer phone subsidies that are a separate line item on the bill that goes away after paying off the phone).
Licensing should fulfill that requirement as well, as long as the licensee is producing and distributing the product.
I have no problem with a company whose whole business is coming up with great ideas, patenting them, and letting others do the work of making it an actual product. A time limit like you suggested should still prevent patent trolls who flip this pattern backwards (others make the product and then you extract the licensing fees).
Of course the majority won't be in favor of those things, if that's the spin you put on it.
On the other hand, if you change the spin into issues of national defense and keeping our children safe, things would be quite different.
You see the exact same thing when it comes to politicians and their platforms. I can't imagine things would be much better if we voted on issues directly.
My only complaint would be about style. The fizzCheck() and buzzCheck() functions really aren't necessary and just make things more difficult to read (compared to inlining the checks in the loop). In this case, at least. (Also, you could rewrite them to just be 'return i % 3 == 0', which would help a bit, too). Basic rule of thumb: the cleaner the code, the better. Don't make the reviewer trace through function calls and conditionals when something simpler would do.
In real code, it can be quite ambiguous as to whether or not to make a function for a condition check. If the check is done multiple times, it's probably a good idea to make a function for it. If the check is only done once, it might just be a bad idea. Fortunately, refactoring tools help a lot if you want to rework that decision later.
Of course, the fizzbuzz test is just to make sure you're minimally competent, not to judge how good of a programmer you are (that's a much harder question). Style points don't matter. I say you pass.
If this were a real peer review (from my experience, at least), almost everybody would be complaining that you didn't use their exact brace style or that you didn't use yoda conditionals or some such nonsense. If you get complaints along those lines, tell them to buzz off and learn how to read code. (After you're hired, of course.)
Their old TOS let them do exactly that already. Go read it again. I'll wait.
The change they made now gives them the rights to not only use the image however they need to implement their services, it also gives them the ability to sublicense user images to others.
Who are these others? I can't think of any reason why another USER of instagram would need a licence for the pictures of other users. So, that leaves other companies that instagram works with, such as advertisers. The new language would allow them to sublicense your images to an advertiser, without asking you and without any compensation. That's what got everybody all worked up.
Fortunately, the blog post seems to suggest that this won't be happening, and they'll be removing, or at least changing, that language. Good for them.
Slashdot Mirror
Card was a Mormon missionary in Brazil. His understanding of the Brazilian culture and Portuguese language is 100x that of most Americans, but probably rather limited, since he only lived there for a couple years and had limited contact outside the missionary life.
Also, give a little bit of slack ... Speaker takes place a couple thousand years in the future. The more accurate depiction of the Brazilian culture, the less believable it would probably be.
BTW, just to understand your perspective, are you Brazilian? Or at least from South America? If so, I thank you for the insight. Otherwise...
I'm a data point against your initial claim. I bought a 7" for two reasons: portability and price. Almost everyone else I've talked to has said the same thing.
Once you move outside of Slashdot, it's amazing how few fanbois there are out there.
Even a wallet?
Which is why the 7" size is perfect for the parent of a toddler. Need to run after them before they break or spill something? Just slip it in your pocket and go!
I put my Nexus 7 in my jacket pocket all the time, even with a case. Fits well in my suit jacket, even, and you can't really tell that it's there, visually. Yes, it's a bit heavy, but you get used to it. It also fits in the front pocket of some of my pants.
Pluto, Makemake, and Haumea are now officially designated "Plutoids" ... I think the rule there is to name them after various gods of creation. Pluto is, of course, an exception due to history.
Moons in general have various naming schemes. Take Uranus, for example, where many moons are named after characters from Shakespeare's plays, of all things.
The moons of Pluto have so far been named after things associated with Pluto. I know of nothing that associates Vulcan with Pluto, however, other than his connection with fire ... which Christians associate with the underworld. Whoops.
The Library of Congress is under the Legislative Branch, yes. But is the Librarian?
The Librarian of Congress is sometimes seen as an "Executive branch official" since the President makes the appointment. On the other hand, the President has no authority to remove the Librarian from office. I don't think there's an official procedure for doing so, short of an act of Congress.
So, who's your boss? The one who hired you, or the one who can fire you? It seems that, in the case of the Librarian of Congress, this issue hasn't been resolved quite yet. I doubt Obama will push the issue.
Interestingly, there have been a few calls over time to formally move the Library to the Executive branch, but that so far hasn't happened.
(Interesting relevant reading:
http://library.syr.edu/about/people/thorin_suzanne/Librarians%20of%20Congress.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_federal_agencies
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-dc-circuit/1461407.html)
From the first link (which is sometimes strongly in favor of fair-use, interestingly):
When the 44th President of the United States assumes office in January 2009, Billington, the 13th Librarian of Congress, will be but four months away from his 80th birthday. If he is still serving, Billington will be the oldest person to hold that office since it was created in 1802. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that due to retirement, politics or both, interested communities may want to think about leadership requirements for the next Librarian of Congress.
In our time, the technology environment has evolved rapidly, and libraries around the world have been among the leading public institutions to transform themselves to meet new demands. The Library of Congress is no exception. Its future leaders will continue to grapple with the demands of collecting, preserving, and making accessible precious analog and digital materials, some of which may be available nowhere else in the world.
17 U.S.C. 1201. Section 1201
Congress specifically authorized the Librarian of Congress to make these decisions. The Librarian is a presidentially-appointed position.
You RPN understand don't.
The keystrokes reversed simply aren't. You operators place operands after. RPN notation infix is.
English designed isn't RPN for. Informative 1 + unintelligible 1 + or ? You decide!
As others point out, you're not making sense. But here's an alternative...
A gene that would prevent pollen production would be helpful. Then, the modified genes won't be able to spread to neighboring crops at all. Even a reduction in pollen would potentially make a difference.
Of course, now I'm the one talking nonsense. Without pollination, the crop won't produce anything at all.
So, here's a more viable option, looking at wheat for an example. Maybe engineer the pollen with some sort of defect so it can't spread as easily in the wind. Wheat self-pollinates, often before the flowers have a chance to even open, so hopefully this defect would allow self-pollination but not cross-pollination.
How do you prevent pollen from spreading? I have no idea (make the pollen heavier?). Again, I'm probably talking nonsense. IANAF (I am not a farmer), IANAGE (I am not a genetic engineer). IANAL, too, if that makes a difference.
What nobody here seems to be talking about are refurbished items.
Manufacturers don't want other people to be able to service their devices, sure. But the manufacturer wants to be able to go into a defective item, replace the camera or whatever might have been bad, and resell it at a modest discount. But that only works if repairing costs less than just making a new one to begin with.
That's why I suspect Apple made their devices easier to repair while at the same time introducing their own proprietary "pentalobe" screw. They don't want third party repair shops to get in, but they want to make their own repairs easier.
Mark my words: the Surface Pro won't be available refurbished by the manufacturer in any significant quantity (only returns where nothing was actually wrong will get resold). Third party refurbished items will be of very shoddy quality.
GPS signals are poor in urban environments. But I suppose you'd only need to see one satellite.
But why even go that far? A radio-controlled clock using the NIST station in Ft. Collins, CO would be a much simpler solution, I would think.
How does reception of a radio clock compare to GPS reception? (I live in Colorado so it's never been a problem for me).
And therefore you manage it yourself.
The problem is if you trust your watch to do the right thing, but then it turns around and messes up. That's worse than just doing it yourself.
I'll second that translation and your analysis. That's exactly how I read that first claim.
Let's look at that "order" and how it's updated, though. That's the only thing that could remotely be patentable about their system.
My wife worked for a wholesaler, fulfilling orders for major retailers (including Walmart). In the morning, they would go through their filing cabinet and find the periodic orders that were to be fulfilled that day. Should would write up a "pick slip" (basically the same thing as an "order" in the patent) and send it to the warehouse. If the customer called up and requested a change to their order, she would go through the pick slips, find the right one, and make the change.
So, how does that compare with the patent? Well, the first difference is that my wife did the work herself and wrote things out on paper. Amazon's patent does it with a computer and databases. The second difference is that they called it a "pick slip" instead of an "order." If there's a third difference, I'm at a loss to see it.
First off, yes, I read the patent.
Amazon is, of course, doing something on the scale that nobody else has attempted. They'll probably be very good at it, and good for them.
However, that has nothing to do with the patent. The processes described by the patent are the exact same thing that people have been doing in real life on smaller scales for hundreds (or maybe even thousands), of years.
There is nothing ... NOTHING ... in that patent that enables them to do this on a large scale, except for the automation that a computer provides (which, unfortunately, seems to make anything patentable these days). If you disagree, please call out something specific, like an actual claim in the patent, and a description of why it's something new and not just the first and most obvious solution their engineers came up with.
Congratulations to Amazon if they pull off this scale of delivery. But what they're doing should in no way be patentable, at least not as described in the patent that was awarded.
Yeah, Slashdot has a tendency to oversimplify patents to their core idea, which always sound ridiculous. A variation on the Strawman fallacy.
Here's the problem with the implementation in this patent: it's bloody obvious. I mean, how else would you design "a computer-implemented method for providing recurring delivery of products?"
performing instructions under the control of a computer system
Well, duh. Let's use a computer.
a designation of a delivery slot and a recurring delivery list comprising one or more list items, each of the one or more list items identifying a product, a quantity to deliver, and a frequency of delivery
Ok, keep a list of what to deliver, where, and when.
periodically generating, by the computer system, an order having a date and time for delivery based on a next occurrence of the delivery slot, the order being generated in advance of the date and time for delivery such that the order has a period of time of pendency prior to the delivery; creating, by the computer system, one or more order items for the order based on a last delivery date and the frequency of delivery of each list item in the recurring delivery list;
From that list, have the computer create an order in advance of delivery.
receiving at the computer system a change made to a first list item of the recurring delivery list during the period of time of pendency of the order; in response to receiving the change, determining, by the computer system, whether the order includes an order item corresponding to the first list item; in response to determining that the order includes an order item corresponding to the first list item, modifying, by the computer system, the order item corresponding to the first list item based on the change made to the first list item of the recurring delivery list;
If I'm interpreting this right, this seems to be a question of what happens if a change is made between making the order form from that last step and delivery time. In this case, the computer makes the appropriate change. How novel.
and providing, by the computer system, the order to an order fulfillment system capable of causing the one or more order items to be delivered substantially on the date and time for delivery.
And then the computer sends the order to be fulfilled.
It seems to me that all the subsequent claims focus on that part where something changes before an order is fulfilled (change in quantity or frequency is claim 2, a hold on delivery is claim 3).
Now, don't get me wrong here. Managing all the complexities of automated deliveries can be quite complicated. Each of the claims seems to focus on one of those complexities, and shows the basic way the system integrates that feature. But, the solutions Amazon patented are the basic way anybody would go about solving this without computers.
"Someone wants more bananas, and I've already written out the order form! Oh, no! Whatever shall I do? Hmmm ... let's look through the orders ... yep, there it is ... let me write down the new quantity. Phew! What would have done without this patent!?!"
BTW, I wouldn't be surprised if the amount of raw text in the patent exceeds the code for the logic it implements. About 15,000 words in text, or maybe a few thousand lines of code. I hate reading patents.
Sounds like someone needs to start a torrent.
Forgive me for being a Brit so not really understanding what this is all about, but is it not the case that when you buy a phone in the US you are buying it for a small fraction of the actual cost (or being given it free) under the condition that you only use it on their network and hence pay for the calls to the people who subsidised the phone? That is how it works over here.
We forgive you.
You're close in how you understand this, but not quite. The condition under which subsidized phones are provided is usually a two-year contract with that carrier. The phone subsidy is repaid by the monthly fee over the life of the contract, regardless of how many phone calls are made and on which carrier. (In light of this, you would think that a carrier wouldn't mind and would even encourage making all your calls on another network, as long as you kept paying your monthly fee.)
Interestingly, the carrier lock-in is not a condition of that two-year contract, but is in the basic terms of service. Thus, it has nothing to do with the phone subsidy, at least not directly.
So, what we have is a system where the carrier offers a subsidized phone and locks the subscribers in for two years. When those two years are up, the subscriber can continue paying the same higher monthly rate, or get a new phone (and another two year contract), or switch to another carrier ... but you can't bring your phone with you. But that's fine, because the other carriers also offer the same system.
So, here's where locking the phone benefits the carrier: it encourages people to stick with that carrier, paying the same monthly rate as if they were paying off a phone subsidy. It's that or lock into a contract and get a new phone every two years.
In case you're wondering ... this system sucks for almost everyone but the carriers. People who want a new phone every two years (a lot of us, unfortunately) don't get hit quite as hard, but there are better systems for them, too.
I should say that there are two major exceptions to this system: prepaid phones (which work closer to your thinking) and T-Mobile (which has a reduced monthly rate if you bring your own phone or can offer phone subsidies that are a separate line item on the bill that goes away after paying off the phone).
Licensing should fulfill that requirement as well, as long as the licensee is producing and distributing the product.
I have no problem with a company whose whole business is coming up with great ideas, patenting them, and letting others do the work of making it an actual product. A time limit like you suggested should still prevent patent trolls who flip this pattern backwards (others make the product and then you extract the licensing fees).
Google uses actual people? I thought they used pigeons....
Of course the majority won't be in favor of those things, if that's the spin you put on it.
On the other hand, if you change the spin into issues of national defense and keeping our children safe, things would be quite different.
You see the exact same thing when it comes to politicians and their platforms. I can't imagine things would be much better if we voted on issues directly.
I wonder if being jailed counts as an "extended stop."
My only complaint would be about style. The fizzCheck() and buzzCheck() functions really aren't necessary and just make things more difficult to read (compared to inlining the checks in the loop). In this case, at least. (Also, you could rewrite them to just be 'return i % 3 == 0', which would help a bit, too). Basic rule of thumb: the cleaner the code, the better. Don't make the reviewer trace through function calls and conditionals when something simpler would do.
In real code, it can be quite ambiguous as to whether or not to make a function for a condition check. If the check is done multiple times, it's probably a good idea to make a function for it. If the check is only done once, it might just be a bad idea. Fortunately, refactoring tools help a lot if you want to rework that decision later.
Of course, the fizzbuzz test is just to make sure you're minimally competent, not to judge how good of a programmer you are (that's a much harder question). Style points don't matter. I say you pass.
If this were a real peer review (from my experience, at least), almost everybody would be complaining that you didn't use their exact brace style or that you didn't use yoda conditionals or some such nonsense. If you get complaints along those lines, tell them to buzz off and learn how to read code. (After you're hired, of course.)
I was going to point out Facebook's "poke" feature, but I like yours better.
The problem is that the USPTO is awarding "piss-patents" and so companies naturally file them. That's the problem that needs to be fixed.
Their old TOS let them do exactly that already. Go read it again. I'll wait.
The change they made now gives them the rights to not only use the image however they need to implement their services, it also gives them the ability to sublicense user images to others.
Who are these others? I can't think of any reason why another USER of instagram would need a licence for the pictures of other users. So, that leaves other companies that instagram works with, such as advertisers. The new language would allow them to sublicense your images to an advertiser, without asking you and without any compensation. That's what got everybody all worked up.
Fortunately, the blog post seems to suggest that this won't be happening, and they'll be removing, or at least changing, that language. Good for them.