It seems to me that copmanyies very often sit on a patent until their 'invention' becomes very popular before enforcing the patent. Perhaps patents should be more trademarks, either enforece it, or lose it. As it stands, each copmany that wants to bring a product to market would have to do a thorough (and costly) patent search to avoid litigation. This seems counter-intuitive for ideas that have established themselves, or even become standards, such a packet writing. After all, if countless other companies are producing it, why should I expect to have any trouble myself? But then, boom, the company holding the obscure patent comes out of nowhere.
It's unfair of a company to keep quiet about patent infringement until their invention has become a standard, and then try to leverage their way into a monopoly with patent litigation. If they had been forthcoming about their patent in the first place, perhaps other (better?) standards would be invented. Or, if the idea behind the patent really is that good, the original copmany would en up with most of the market share, and come by it honestly.
In conclusion, patents should be more like trademarks. Use 'em or lose 'em.
I'm not talking specifically about a neclear reaction here, I am talking about the equivalance of mass and energy in general. However, nuclear reations do play into it, and I believe that there is a measurable change in the mass of the reactant during a nuclear reaction.
Well, "destroying its energy" would be a rather major accomplishment, if I remember my highschool lessons regarding conservation of energy...
Ok, my grasp of this is a bit fuzzy, but... I believe you can destroy energy, or at least convert it into mass. That's what e=mc^2 was all about. Einstein showed that mass and energy are equivalent, and because mass and energy are equivalent, you can destroy energy to creat mass, or vice versa.
That's some commitment to closing the 'digital divide'. Well, as long as they make reasonably affordable computers available to their citizens when this thing goes live.
What digital divide? Korea currently has the highest broadband penetration in the world. I'd say if anything, this is widening the digital divide, with South Korea being far ahead of us already!
Actually, there are several free/low-cost helmet programs. For example this program in Kign County, Washington: http://www.metrokc.gov/health/injury/helmets.htm
> changing of gears is possible without pedaling (my favorite)
Not to troll, but I'm curious as to why this is a plus. If you're coasting, it doesn't really matter what gear your in. The only time you should want to change gears is when you're peddaling. At least, that's my take on it.
Seriously, and with no intent to troll, does anyone know what the audiophile community means by 'image outlines'? I hear this term thrown around a lot by audiophiles, and I'm baffled at what is actually means.
I want to buy more MP3s, legally. But I'm not going to bother with these half-assed more-expensive, more-restricted offerings. Sooner or later, they'll realize they have to offer equivalent or greater value to the consumer to win their business.
I want to listen to my newly-purchased songs in WinAmp, right along side my existing rips that I legally own. And if I want to put them on my laptop and listen to them while traveling, so be it. And MP3 players, while cycling. And maybe burn some to a CD to listen to in my car. It's my music, I can do what I want with it. Anything less is unacceptible.
Try www.emusic.com. Unlimited downloads of plain old MP3s (high quality VBR, no less) for $15 a month.
> Yeah, what the hell's going on here? Judge screws over 50,000,000 people because Congress screwed up. OK, so far, story makes sense.
> But what's with Congress fixing the problem, especially fixing it within a few days. I mean, come on, this is September 2003, not 2004! Nobody's gonna remember Congress fixing its mistakes when the elections are over a year away.
The reason seems obvious to me. The congressmen themselves are damn tired of getting telemarketing calls.
WHAT IS THE POINT? It seems like people just do this because THEY CAN and are not asking whether they SHOULD be doing this?
Bingo. That is the point. We geeks hack x-boxes for the same reason people climb Mt. Everest. Because it's there, because we can hack it, and because we have fun doing it. There doesn't need to be any other reason.
I don't see that this is terribly impressive. I mean, he's done a fair bit of research, wrote several papers, and uses big words like "nanoscale chemical filter" and "Boolean string re-arrangements," but in the end, all he seems to have done is pour chemicals on CDs and make them skip. I could do the same with a brillo pad. Why is that impressive? He makes a lot of noise about computing, but is any usefull computing actually going on? What are the practical applications of this "technology"?
Taking a look at the media samples, it doesn't strike me that he's stumbled on a cool new artistic technique at all (it should be mentioned that the artist Oval has been scratching up CDs in the name of art with much better results for years). This is the same thing anyone has gotten when they accidently scratched up a CD or DVD. There's no art to it, and frankly it sounds terrible.
I can understand why this would be important if his techniques yielded predictable, useful results, such as achieve a specific, desired audio or visual effect. But basically all that he gets in a broken file. The same could be done by randomly flipping an arbitrary number of bits inside a mp3. Nothing usefull is being computed or done at all. So why is this important, or even relevant?
I don't think he was talking about phones. He meant dials on a TV to change channels (which we don't need thanks to remote controls. You know, like "We'll be right back with today's Movie, don't touch that dial!"
> Nope. That makes it an adverb. It's modifying a verb, see?
No, search acts as a noun in that case. See dictionary.com:
search... n. An act of searching.
Re:Adjective?
on
Google Turns 5
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
> Seriously, can someone come up with an adjectival usage, or are they just dumb?
How about 'google search.' As in, 'just do a google search for it.' That usage is pretty common, and in that contect, google is an adjective modifying the word 'search.'
They're also asking for a jury trial. IANAL (duh), so I don't know if that's a good or bad idea.
I am also not a lawyer, but this seems like a pretty smar move to me. It seems to be that a jury is much more likely than a judge to rule in favor of the webcasters. After all, it's people like the jurors that enjoy listening to music on their computers. Whereas a judge is more likely to rule strictly by the book, for the jury, 'free internet radio' vs. no 'free internet radio' will be a no brainer. This might be enough to gain the jury's sympathy, whereas the RIAA (a big bad corporate entity that wants to shut down Kazaa) has no chance of winning the jury's hearts.
Slashdot Mirror
Or use BSD code, appearantly.
> I'll agree that it's a dirty trick, but they are under no obligation to announce the existence of their patent to anyone.
Nor is it the governments obligation to grant patents in the first place.
It seems to me that copmanyies very often sit on a patent until their 'invention' becomes very popular before enforcing the patent. Perhaps patents should be more trademarks, either enforece it, or lose it. As it stands, each copmany that wants to bring a product to market would have to do a thorough (and costly) patent search to avoid litigation. This seems counter-intuitive for ideas that have established themselves, or even become standards, such a packet writing. After all, if countless other companies are producing it, why should I expect to have any trouble myself? But then, boom, the company holding the obscure patent comes out of nowhere.
It's unfair of a company to keep quiet about patent infringement until their invention has become a standard, and then try to leverage their way into a monopoly with patent litigation. If they had been forthcoming about their patent in the first place, perhaps other (better?) standards would be invented. Or, if the idea behind the patent really is that good, the original copmany would en up with most of the market share, and come by it honestly.
In conclusion, patents should be more like trademarks. Use 'em or lose 'em.
I'm not talking specifically about a neclear reaction here, I am talking about the equivalance of mass and energy in general. However, nuclear reations do play into it, and I believe that there is a measurable change in the mass of the reactant during a nuclear reaction.
Ok, my grasp of this is a bit fuzzy, but... I believe you can destroy energy, or at least convert it into mass. That's what e=mc^2 was all about. Einstein showed that mass and energy are equivalent, and because mass and energy are equivalent, you can destroy energy to creat mass, or vice versa.
Huh. Looks like we geeks may get what we want. And president Bush will be the one giving it to us. Odd.
Well, at least you'll admit it. It seems to have worked, too.
That's some commitment to closing the 'digital divide'. Well, as long as they make reasonably affordable computers available to their citizens when this thing goes live.
What digital divide? Korea currently has the highest broadband penetration in the world. I'd say if anything, this is widening the digital divide, with South Korea being far ahead of us already!
You are correct, I have never been mountain biking. Your point is well taken.
> can afford a $100 helmet
Actually, there are several free/low-cost helmet programs. For example this program in Kign County, Washington: http://www.metrokc.gov/health/injury/helmets.htm
> changing of gears is possible without pedaling (my favorite)
Not to troll, but I'm curious as to why this is a plus. If you're coasting, it doesn't really matter what gear your in. The only time you should want to change gears is when you're peddaling. At least, that's my take on it.
You hear that? We're influential!
Seriously, and with no intent to troll, does anyone know what the audiophile community means by 'image outlines'? I hear this term thrown around a lot by audiophiles, and I'm baffled at what is actually means.
Try www.emusic.com. Unlimited downloads of plain old MP3s (high quality VBR, no less) for $15 a month.
> Yeah, what the hell's going on here? Judge screws over 50,000,000 people because Congress screwed up. OK, so far, story makes sense.
> But what's with Congress fixing the problem, especially fixing it within a few days. I mean, come on, this is September 2003, not 2004! Nobody's gonna remember Congress fixing its mistakes when the elections are over a year away.
The reason seems obvious to me. The congressmen themselves are damn tired of getting telemarketing calls.
Everything is a channel, from HBO and ABC to the DVD player and VCR.
Sounds like it's the Unix of remote controls.
Or the internet. That seems pretty good at reducing productivity.
Looks to me like Ford listened.
Bingo. That is the point. We geeks hack x-boxes for the same reason people climb Mt. Everest. Because it's there, because we can hack it, and because we have fun doing it. There doesn't need to be any other reason.
Ok, so this sounds a lot like a troll, but...
I don't see that this is terribly impressive. I mean, he's done a fair bit of research, wrote several papers, and uses big words like "nanoscale chemical filter" and "Boolean string re-arrangements," but in the end, all he seems to have done is pour chemicals on CDs and make them skip. I could do the same with a brillo pad. Why is that impressive? He makes a lot of noise about computing, but is any usefull computing actually going on? What are the practical applications of this "technology"?
Taking a look at the media samples, it doesn't strike me that he's stumbled on a cool new artistic technique at all (it should be mentioned that the artist Oval has been scratching up CDs in the name of art with much better results for years). This is the same thing anyone has gotten when they accidently scratched up a CD or DVD. There's no art to it, and frankly it sounds terrible.
I can understand why this would be important if his techniques yielded predictable, useful results, such as achieve a specific, desired audio or visual effect. But basically all that he gets in a broken file. The same could be done by randomly flipping an arbitrary number of bits inside a mp3. Nothing usefull is being computed or done at all. So why is this important, or even relevant?
> touch-tone phones
I don't think he was talking about phones. He meant dials on a TV to change channels (which we don't need thanks to remote controls. You know, like "We'll be right back with today's Movie, don't touch that dial!"
> Nope. That makes it an adverb. It's modifying a verb, see?
...
No, search acts as a noun in that case. See dictionary.com:
search
n.
An act of searching.
> Seriously, can someone come up with an adjectival usage, or are they just dumb?
How about 'google search.' As in, 'just do a google search for it.' That usage is pretty common, and in that contect, google is an adjective modifying the word 'search.'
I am also not a lawyer, but this seems like a pretty smar move to me. It seems to be that a jury is much more likely than a judge to rule in favor of the webcasters. After all, it's people like the jurors that enjoy listening to music on their computers. Whereas a judge is more likely to rule strictly by the book, for the jury, 'free internet radio' vs. no 'free internet radio' will be a no brainer. This might be enough to gain the jury's sympathy, whereas the RIAA (a big bad corporate entity that wants to shut down Kazaa) has no chance of winning the jury's hearts.
Heart!
By your powers combined... I am Captain Planet!