Doesn't mean it SHOULD be patentable. If patents are to serve to foster innovation, it should be reserved for truly innovative inventions. Not existing concepts taken to the next logical step.
In some cases, yeah. Millions of people have affairs across the country every year, many of them never get caught.
How is it that every other time a politician cheats on his wife we hear about it? Leverage for their opponents. When they don't get what they want, they leak the news about their opponents. Information is the ultimate weapon in the struggle for power.
You're right. I have actually read a good portion of the patent and it's very specific about the fact that a ton of prior art already exists!
In fact, the patent basically says "well we added an AC induction motor to drive the wheels, AND it has a gasoline engine and regenerative braking". From looking at the dates on the patent, I can tell you there is nothing novel about it. It is a basic building blocks continuation of existing technology.
FYI, estimates of earths core temperature range from about 4800 kelvins to 7300 kelvins, which is freaking hot. This high temperature is believed to be latent from the forming of the planet, and secondarily from radioactive elements present in the composition of the planet.
The temperature is so high, and the volume of the earth so large that man has no hope of cooling it significantly anytime this millennium. That's not to say there would be as yet unknown consequences in tectonic action or magnetic pole shift/reversal. It's merely to say that instead of burning up fossil fuels at record pace, we could give the atmosphere a break by using the energy we already have in productive ways.
They do. That's one reason Chicago won't be hosting the olympics. One cited reason was the trouble with getting people into our country without much trouble.
The existing telcos do not like competition, at all. They actively challenge any community-run networks, so even a group of citizens can't sidestep them.
Here in Minnesota a town decided the telephone companies were taking too long to roll out DSL so they started a project to bring broadband to the city themselves. A telephone company sued saying it was unfair competition. The real goal was to delay the co-op until they could get their own network in place so they could undercut the co-op.
If a bomb hit that company, I can't say I wouldn't have some measure of satisfaction.
Sometimes polite doesn't work. I had a problem with Qwest refusing to unbundle my DirecTV. I tried to work it out nicely and amicably, but they refused. So I filed a fraudulent billing FCC complaint. Gave them about 3 weeks to think about it and called back.
After letting the CS rep know that this was already in the hands of the FCC and I intended to see it through, he was more than happy to unbundle my DirecTV and cancel the debt they falsely claimed I owed them.
If nice doesn't work, sometimes being the ass is effective.
Lotus Notes takes a very interesting approach to generic databases. I laud Lotus for their design philosophy and I know IBM has put a lot of work into it, but the implementation of Lotus Notes leaves a lot to be desired. Making all documents generic databases wasn't a bad idea.
This iNotes seems to be a subset of Lotus Notes functionality based on an all-new codebase. Probably a good thing.
Terrible plan. When the next sun cycle starts and the cloud cover is gone, global warming will hit us like a train.
Better idea is to use geothermal heating to keep us all warm during an ice age. The technology exists today but there is no reason to use it while energy is cheap. A period of rapid global cooling would cause energy prices to skyrocket as electric, gas, oil and wood furnaces blaze to keep people warm. The coal plants will roar ahead like nothing is wrong, wind and solar won't be doing very well but that's ok - they dont make up much of the grid right now anyway.
If global cooling became a real problem, food shortage would actually be the most serious impediment to our survival. Extra rain would be good, but the reduced sunlight would hurt crops catastrophically and the average surface temperature really doesn't need to go down that much for crops to be impacted.
This was kind of why AIG floundered. The credit default swap market was basically AIG saying "Sure we will insure the entire mortgage market" and everyone participating in that delusion.
I guess all the greedy banks didn't stop to think that even the biggest insurance company in the country still can't insure the entire market.
I went to a major hospital in washington state some years ago. After a major laceration to my forehead, here's a rough breakdown of the cost.
$900 - Basic ER fee $330 - Stitches, local anesthetic $35 - 500mg Acetaminophen(2)
Yep, you read that right. Thirty five fucking dollars for 2 tylenol. If they told me in advance, I would have said "stuff it. I got tylenol at home assholes".
There is no accountability in health care for keeping costs down. Health insurance is a misnomer because everyone needs health care at some point. It's gone from insuring yourself against catastrophic financial repercussions due to personal injury and illness, to a giant socialistic slush fund where we all dump in hundreds of dollars per month which we then spend when we go to the doctor and pay a small co-pay and somehow think we saved money.
Here in Minnesota, we have a lot of clinics that offer basic health services at a fraction of what you would pay at a normal doctor or hospital. We need a lot more clinics nationwide that offer these types of health services without breaking the bank. Insurance won't go down as long as the health care system is structured as it is.
Healthcare debt is the #1 reason for personal bankruptcy. I don't think this has anything to do with the credit crisis, but it's a fact none the less. Healthcare costs might exacerbate a families income shortfalls but alone is not the source of the mortgage industry collapse.
That's due mostly to originating lenders like Countrywide and others who dramatically increased no-doc, low-doc, alt-A and de facto subprime loans at a pace never seen before. They then foisted that debt on the secondary mortgage market including foreign governments, private institutional investors and our own government. Countrywide was responsible for around $6 trillion USD alone in secondary mortgage market transactions. They knew when they issued them that the buyers couldn't repay, but they didn't care since they carried little burden after they are securitized and sold.
Is it lying for WINE to tell windows programs that it is running in a Windows environment so that it will function properly?
For compatibility, programs frequently lie to each other. This is very common. It's anti-competitive of Apple to say "You all need to do X amount of extra work to let your devices work with our program", where X means writing additional software for iTunes that Apple could invalidate with an ABI change at any time.
I can't prove you wrong. Only a court of law could do so. But here's my best attempt anyway.
The Sherman Act says actions meant to preserve market dominance are illegal when they destroy competition itself. Apple isn't disabling the Pre's syncing because of worry about consumer, they do so because letting the Pre sync could damage their iPod sales. Despite a variety of alternatives, iPod's still command a healthy share of the mobile audio players market.
A case also could be made that Apple's disabling the Pre's ability to sync as a native iPod is illegal product tying - i.e. requiring the purchase of one product to complete purchase or use of another. Although Apple has created a way for media device manufacturers to have an iTunes plugin allowing syncing with their devices, Palm chose to simply program the Pre to pretend to be an iPod to allow native syncing.
A court would have to determine if the additional burden placed on Palm to write a plugin for iTunes constitutes tying or a sherman act violation. Palm attacked the problem the wrong way, but their goal of making a device pretend to be an iPod to allow native syncing was a noble and worthy goal. If Apple changes the iTunes module ABI, all the device manufacturers have additional work with every ABI change to keep their syncing functional. Palm figured if the Pre just pretended to be an iPod, they could sidestep the whole issue.
Morally? Doesn't it seem a bit greedy of Apple to stop the Pre from syncing just because Palm wanted to make life easier for users and making it a PITA to use a Pre might get some people to buy iPods?
I'm not sure what you're driving at with "common carrier" status since that's not related to iTunes, ITMS or iPods. ITMS is not a monopoly, I admit there are dozens of competitors to it. However, none have the breadth that ITMS has as far as selection. It's much like how WalMart isn't a monopoly because other companies sell lots of the same stuff-they just happen to be hundreds of times bigger than your average supermarket chain.
The outcome of the USB-IF wasn't made with legality or morality in mind. They made a judgment with member agreements in hand only.
Morally, it's wrong of Apple to deny other media device manufacturers access to iTunes and ITMS. Legally, it's likely also wrong. The DMCA has an exemption for compatibility and the Pre would probably fall under that.
Whether that violates agreements with USB-IF or not is immaterial. You don't need to be a USB-IF member to manufacture USB devices.
If you support Palm, let them know how important the feature is. Be sure to also drop a response by these folks, the Board of Directors at USB-IF letting them know you support Palm's attempt for true compatibility.
* Hewlett-Packard Company - Alan Berkema * Intel Corporation - Jeff Ravencraft * LSI Corporation - Dave Thompson * Microsoft Corporation - Fred Bhesania * NEC Corporation - Steve Roux * ST-Ericsson - Geert Knapen
Not for media players. Apple is the Microsoft of MP3 players.
Apple should really back off here or they may find anti-trust actions in their future. Emulating another device to provide compatibility is perfectly acceptable, even under the DMCA. Since most ITMS music isn't encrypted anymore(or so I've heard), the DMCA's anti-circumvention may not apply even if Apple could prove the Pre is enabling users to commit copyright violations.
In short, Apple is wrong here but they started down the path and I see no culture around Apple that would let them admit the mistake and back down now.
That's a crock of shit. A law needs to be passed requiring flashing units to be available to anyone who wants them. I'm sure greenpeace would object on the basis that a lot of people would reflash their cars and trucks for more power, increasing their emissions significantly. I guess that's what emissions testing is for, but nevertheless...
I didn't indicate painting the inside of a nuclear powered ship's cooling system was a good idea. I was merely pointing out that paint has been used for years to resist corrosion on marine vessels.
Bronzes and monels are unnecessarily expensive in applications such as this. Stainless steel, as another person pointed out would also work.
Not really. There is no real escape from national laws with respect to the internet. The reason is simple - everyone is connected! Google has a physical presence in the US, so the company can be penalized in the US for actions of the company abroad.
Hypothetically, say you have a ship in the middle of the ocean. You, nor your company have no physical presence anywhere other than the ship. You still need peering from someone on the internet. Whether that be joe blow or AT&T, you need peering. So you decide to host the pirate bay on your ship. RIAA sues your peering provider to terminate your internet access. Your peering provider is in the US. Your peering provider loses the copyright battle(assuming, in this fairy tale land they actually fought it) and shuts off your internet access. Ok, that's fine and good, you can just move the ship and find another peering provider. Repeat ad nauseum. Eventaully, you run out of people willing to peer with you.
You need to get peering from someone with sufficient political clout that THEIR peering provider isn't willing to cut them off, AND is willing to stand up to international pressure to terminate your access. I think there's a reason a lot of nefarious activity on the internet comes from Russia. Nobody has the clout to take russia offline and russia doesn't mind having all the crooks using their tubes.
Slashdot Mirror
They've done a bang up job so far, why stop now...
Doesn't mean it SHOULD be patentable. If patents are to serve to foster innovation, it should be reserved for truly innovative inventions. Not existing concepts taken to the next logical step.
In some cases, yeah. Millions of people have affairs across the country every year, many of them never get caught.
How is it that every other time a politician cheats on his wife we hear about it? Leverage for their opponents. When they don't get what they want, they leak the news about their opponents. Information is the ultimate weapon in the struggle for power.
You're right. I have actually read a good portion of the patent and it's very specific about the fact that a ton of prior art already exists!
In fact, the patent basically says "well we added an AC induction motor to drive the wheels, AND it has a gasoline engine and regenerative braking". From looking at the dates on the patent, I can tell you there is nothing novel about it. It is a basic building blocks continuation of existing technology.
FYI, estimates of earths core temperature range from about 4800 kelvins to 7300 kelvins, which is freaking hot. This high temperature is believed to be latent from the forming of the planet, and secondarily from radioactive elements present in the composition of the planet.
The temperature is so high, and the volume of the earth so large that man has no hope of cooling it significantly anytime this millennium. That's not to say there would be as yet unknown consequences in tectonic action or magnetic pole shift/reversal. It's merely to say that instead of burning up fossil fuels at record pace, we could give the atmosphere a break by using the energy we already have in productive ways.
Honestly, the best email client I have ever used respecting PKI was Thunderbird with Enigmail on Linux.
I've tried to duplicate this success on my laptop with Vista, but enigmail sucks balls and just flat out doesn't work right.
We really need a good, OSS cross platform email client that supports GPG.
Whats the path to getting the root cert in popular browsers?
I really don't know how that works. Does Mozilla just decide?
They do. That's one reason Chicago won't be hosting the olympics. One cited reason was the trouble with getting people into our country without much trouble.
The existing telcos do not like competition, at all. They actively challenge any community-run networks, so even a group of citizens can't sidestep them.
Here in Minnesota a town decided the telephone companies were taking too long to roll out DSL so they started a project to bring broadband to the city themselves. A telephone company sued saying it was unfair competition. The real goal was to delay the co-op until they could get their own network in place so they could undercut the co-op.
If a bomb hit that company, I can't say I wouldn't have some measure of satisfaction.
Sometimes polite doesn't work. I had a problem with Qwest refusing to unbundle my DirecTV. I tried to work it out nicely and amicably, but they refused. So I filed a fraudulent billing FCC complaint. Gave them about 3 weeks to think about it and called back.
After letting the CS rep know that this was already in the hands of the FCC and I intended to see it through, he was more than happy to unbundle my DirecTV and cancel the debt they falsely claimed I owed them.
If nice doesn't work, sometimes being the ass is effective.
Lotus Notes takes a very interesting approach to generic databases. I laud Lotus for their design philosophy and I know IBM has put a lot of work into it, but the implementation of Lotus Notes leaves a lot to be desired. Making all documents generic databases wasn't a bad idea.
This iNotes seems to be a subset of Lotus Notes functionality based on an all-new codebase. Probably a good thing.
Terrible plan. When the next sun cycle starts and the cloud cover is gone, global warming will hit us like a train.
Better idea is to use geothermal heating to keep us all warm during an ice age. The technology exists today but there is no reason to use it while energy is cheap. A period of rapid global cooling would cause energy prices to skyrocket as electric, gas, oil and wood furnaces blaze to keep people warm. The coal plants will roar ahead like nothing is wrong, wind and solar won't be doing very well but that's ok - they dont make up much of the grid right now anyway.
If global cooling became a real problem, food shortage would actually be the most serious impediment to our survival. Extra rain would be good, but the reduced sunlight would hurt crops catastrophically and the average surface temperature really doesn't need to go down that much for crops to be impacted.
Some of that will be difficult to teach in just 30 minute sessions. Stick to the basics.
That should give you a good amount of material to cover.
This was kind of why AIG floundered. The credit default swap market was basically AIG saying "Sure we will insure the entire mortgage market" and everyone participating in that delusion.
I guess all the greedy banks didn't stop to think that even the biggest insurance company in the country still can't insure the entire market.
I went to a major hospital in washington state some years ago. After a major laceration to my forehead, here's a rough breakdown of the cost.
$900 - Basic ER fee
$330 - Stitches, local anesthetic
$35 - 500mg Acetaminophen(2)
Yep, you read that right. Thirty five fucking dollars for 2 tylenol. If they told me in advance, I would have said "stuff it. I got tylenol at home assholes".
There is no accountability in health care for keeping costs down. Health insurance is a misnomer because everyone needs health care at some point. It's gone from insuring yourself against catastrophic financial repercussions due to personal injury and illness, to a giant socialistic slush fund where we all dump in hundreds of dollars per month which we then spend when we go to the doctor and pay a small co-pay and somehow think we saved money.
Here in Minnesota, we have a lot of clinics that offer basic health services at a fraction of what you would pay at a normal doctor or hospital. We need a lot more clinics nationwide that offer these types of health services without breaking the bank. Insurance won't go down as long as the health care system is structured as it is.
Healthcare debt is the #1 reason for personal bankruptcy. I don't think this has anything to do with the credit crisis, but it's a fact none the less. Healthcare costs might exacerbate a families income shortfalls but alone is not the source of the mortgage industry collapse.
That's due mostly to originating lenders like Countrywide and others who dramatically increased no-doc, low-doc, alt-A and de facto subprime loans at a pace never seen before. They then foisted that debt on the secondary mortgage market including foreign governments, private institutional investors and our own government. Countrywide was responsible for around $6 trillion USD alone in secondary mortgage market transactions. They knew when they issued them that the buyers couldn't repay, but they didn't care since they carried little burden after they are securitized and sold.
The API exists, as does the ABI. Both are subject to change at Apple's whim.
Would you release a device that relies on the good will of another company, knowing that they can break compatibility with your device at any time?
Slash-hole isn't a very nice thing to say.
Is it lying for WINE to tell windows programs that it is running in a Windows environment so that it will function properly?
For compatibility, programs frequently lie to each other. This is very common. It's anti-competitive of Apple to say "You all need to do X amount of extra work to let your devices work with our program", where X means writing additional software for iTunes that Apple could invalidate with an ABI change at any time.
I can't prove you wrong. Only a court of law could do so. But here's my best attempt anyway.
The Sherman Act says actions meant to preserve market dominance are illegal when they destroy competition itself. Apple isn't disabling the Pre's syncing because of worry about consumer, they do so because letting the Pre sync could damage their iPod sales. Despite a variety of alternatives, iPod's still command a healthy share of the mobile audio players market.
A case also could be made that Apple's disabling the Pre's ability to sync as a native iPod is illegal product tying - i.e. requiring the purchase of one product to complete purchase or use of another. Although Apple has created a way for media device manufacturers to have an iTunes plugin allowing syncing with their devices, Palm chose to simply program the Pre to pretend to be an iPod to allow native syncing.
A court would have to determine if the additional burden placed on Palm to write a plugin for iTunes constitutes tying or a sherman act violation. Palm attacked the problem the wrong way, but their goal of making a device pretend to be an iPod to allow native syncing was a noble and worthy goal. If Apple changes the iTunes module ABI, all the device manufacturers have additional work with every ABI change to keep their syncing functional. Palm figured if the Pre just pretended to be an iPod, they could sidestep the whole issue.
Morally? Doesn't it seem a bit greedy of Apple to stop the Pre from syncing just because Palm wanted to make life easier for users and making it a PITA to use a Pre might get some people to buy iPods?
I'm not sure what you're driving at with "common carrier" status since that's not related to iTunes, ITMS or iPods. ITMS is not a monopoly, I admit there are dozens of competitors to it. However, none have the breadth that ITMS has as far as selection. It's much like how WalMart isn't a monopoly because other companies sell lots of the same stuff-they just happen to be hundreds of times bigger than your average supermarket chain.
The outcome of the USB-IF wasn't made with legality or morality in mind. They made a judgment with member agreements in hand only.
Morally, it's wrong of Apple to deny other media device manufacturers access to iTunes and ITMS. Legally, it's likely also wrong. The DMCA has an exemption for compatibility and the Pre would probably fall under that.
Whether that violates agreements with USB-IF or not is immaterial. You don't need to be a USB-IF member to manufacture USB devices.
If you support Palm, let them know how important the feature is. Be sure to also drop a response by these folks, the Board of Directors at USB-IF letting them know you support Palm's attempt for true compatibility.
* Hewlett-Packard Company - Alan Berkema
* Intel Corporation - Jeff Ravencraft
* LSI Corporation - Dave Thompson
* Microsoft Corporation - Fred Bhesania
* NEC Corporation - Steve Roux
* ST-Ericsson - Geert Knapen
Not for media players. Apple is the Microsoft of MP3 players.
Apple should really back off here or they may find anti-trust actions in their future. Emulating another device to provide compatibility is perfectly acceptable, even under the DMCA. Since most ITMS music isn't encrypted anymore(or so I've heard), the DMCA's anti-circumvention may not apply even if Apple could prove the Pre is enabling users to commit copyright violations.
In short, Apple is wrong here but they started down the path and I see no culture around Apple that would let them admit the mistake and back down now.
That's a crock of shit. A law needs to be passed requiring flashing units to be available to anyone who wants them. I'm sure greenpeace would object on the basis that a lot of people would reflash their cars and trucks for more power, increasing their emissions significantly. I guess that's what emissions testing is for, but nevertheless...
I didn't indicate painting the inside of a nuclear powered ship's cooling system was a good idea. I was merely pointing out that paint has been used for years to resist corrosion on marine vessels.
Bronzes and monels are unnecessarily expensive in applications such as this. Stainless steel, as another person pointed out would also work.
Paint doesn't have to be a thermal insulator, but many are. Like adhesives, there is a paint for everything.
See my other comments re: ecological impact. You're right - the impact is non-negligible, even in seawater.
Not really. There is no real escape from national laws with respect to the internet. The reason is simple - everyone is connected! Google has a physical presence in the US, so the company can be penalized in the US for actions of the company abroad.
Hypothetically, say you have a ship in the middle of the ocean. You, nor your company have no physical presence anywhere other than the ship. You still need peering from someone on the internet. Whether that be joe blow or AT&T, you need peering. So you decide to host the pirate bay on your ship. RIAA sues your peering provider to terminate your internet access. Your peering provider is in the US. Your peering provider loses the copyright battle(assuming, in this fairy tale land they actually fought it) and shuts off your internet access. Ok, that's fine and good, you can just move the ship and find another peering provider. Repeat ad nauseum. Eventaully, you run out of people willing to peer with you.
You need to get peering from someone with sufficient political clout that THEIR peering provider isn't willing to cut them off, AND is willing to stand up to international pressure to terminate your access. I think there's a reason a lot of nefarious activity on the internet comes from Russia. Nobody has the clout to take russia offline and russia doesn't mind having all the crooks using their tubes.