Could this be a reaction to that brain dead French court ruling on Yahoo? Maybe Google is filtering out Nazi related stuff if the reverse DNS indicates you're in France? Of course that wouldn't excuse them from only providing a French language page.
Its not just Tigers, it sall great Cats that don't purr. Ist the construction of the voice box. Great Cats can growl but not purr, small cats can purr but not truely growl. in afct, this is the DEFINITION of Great Cat and small cat.
That "definition" you quote was formulated in 1916 and is not universally followed. Lions and many other big cats do purr, although they are only able to purr as they exhale so it's not quite the same as with smaller cats.
As for the research, it's a well known fact that injured cats purr (see, e.g. Encyclopaedia Britannica) so it's hardly suprising that it might have some beneficial effect. Here's a link to
the original article this story is on.
First, just because something's short enough to memorize doesn't mean copyright doesn't apply. Go the bookstore, pick up a book of modern poetry, and memorize a poem. Not too hard -- many of us have probably done it already. That doesn't mean you can now publish it wherever you please.
But we aren't jst memorizing some copyrighted work. We'd be memorizing a number that if given a certain meaning yields another number that when manipulated in a certain way then produces the copyrighted work. I just you could argue that publishing the combination of algorithm and data (the prime or the ordinal position of the prime) would breach the copyright.
Someone else mentioned the idea of XOR'ing the source with a large random number which gives you another large random number. Is it illegal to publish either large random number? What about both together?
Second, have fun getting the number short enough to memorize. Trust me, it ain't the 48562845th number, or anywhere near there.
You're right about that. It would be on the order of 1/1000 of the original prime. In this case around 1397 digits long.
The issue is not RHN. RHN is irrelevant to the vast majority of Slashdot readers, who don't need the services provided by RHN. The issue is up2date no longer working anonymously.
I don't see how they can monitor the service to prevent people from upgrading more systems than they've paid for and still allow anonymous access.
And as any type of data can be converted to 'just a number'.... this won't hold up. It's still decss, just encoded and padded out to a prime.
What if you describe it by it's ordinal position in the list of primes? Say it's the 48562845th prime number (I have no idea). Now you've encoded it down to 48562845. I can see a court ruling a 1400 digit prime as being just an encoding, but what about something short enough to memorize?
So... what are the odds some other C compiler is bugged with a target of GCC? Build GCC with something else (or several somethings and do some comparisons of subsequent GCC output).
Is that possible? Can you build GCC with anything other than GCC?
By the same token, then, post office physically could well block letters... Or, AOL can, technically speaking, prevent its users from posting to newsgroups. And so on.
It's not so much about physical/technical ability but more about editorial style. If they choose _not_ to use editorial powers, it's irrelevant if they have the technical means to use them or not.
No it's not. Go read the DMCA. You can't choose not to exercise your control. The law requires you to block the infringement material. The post office isn't effected because they don't know what the contents of the mail are. IANAL, so I don't know what AOL's situation would be. The only way Slashdot might be able to sidestep this law is if they legally relinquish all control over the comments. Simply saying "it's not our editorial style to filter comments" is not enough.
(3) that the defendant materially contributed to the direct infringement.
1&2 are fair enough, but 3? I don't think so.
They host the messages on a site they own. That's definitely materially contributing.
(2) that the defendant had the right or ability to control the direct infringer;
The crucial point is number 2, Slashdot is perfectly free to sign off any 'rights' over what the posters here say
But they haven't relinquished the control. No matter how much responsibility they deny (over user's posts) they still control the site and can remove anything they like. Therefore they must according to the law.
The paper makes one thing shiningly clear: P2P Systems have 2 choices. They van choose between total anarchy, and total control. The problem for Napster is that it did not choose either, and retained some control, and more importantly the right to such control. If slashdot went down the anarchy route, and from reading the posts one would think it had, then it would have nothing to fear. This is about retaining the right, and also exercising it, to tamper with users posts.
Don't forget that Slashdot is not a peer to peer system, it is centralized. They owners of the site will never be able to convince anyone that they've surrendered control of the site as it is. They would have to give complete control of comments back to the user (i.e. editing and deleting of existing comments, no archiving ever). And they couldn't maintain control over the users accounts either, they'd have to contractually agree (with each user) to never block any user.
Computer scientists don't really discover principles either, because computer science isn't a science -- it's more of a philosophy, like mathematics.
Mathematics is a hard science, like physics, chemistry and computer science.
No one explores an operating system, looking for the intrinsic principles which dictate its behavior. They don't create systems to describe the way computer chips work.
Do you have a CS degree? This is exactly the sort of thing that is done in Computer Science research. You usually wouldn't study a particular OS but you'd certainly study the design and theory of OS's.
It isn't physics or chemistry, it is not an empirical science and has little relation to those fields.
Science != "empirical science". Pure physics and chemistry not empirical at all. You're thinking of biology (and even that's getting less empirical). Empirical means that you don't have a theory - that you're just observing something.
So what is all this button talk in the patent? Sounds like a different device from a Palm.
They seem to be describing (in the usual fucked up lawyer-speak (what's with all the "plurality"s)) a touch screen set up. In particular look at this image. Figure 3 clearly shows the device displaying the time and date, a short todo or appointment list and a menu of other options. Don't get hung up over the size of the device either: claim 1 doesn't mention any size requirement. Claim 1 is a fairly accurate description of the Palm (IMHO,IANAL,etc). The one obvious thing it doesn't describe is the ability to download new software to the device.
They (NCR) didn't give a crap about their patent until they realized they could possibly grift Handspring and Palm.
Doesn't matter. There's is no requirement in patent law to actively defend your patent (like there is in trademark law). NCR can choose to enforce their patent any time they like. But timing is crucial. If NCR had of used the patent too early Palm might have changed the design to avoid the patent. If they wait too late they'll certainly face a legal battle with an uncertain outcome (but which may well invalidate the patent). If they got it right Palm would have paid license fees without any real fuss. Same scenario is currently playing itself out with Rambus.
sometimes I would like to see a bit less bias in the articles themselves. The reason is that it makes the source of some of my knowledge of current events suspect. Can I trust Slashdot to paint a fair picture of a situation when they post a story about it? Not always...
Keep in mind that what you see on the/. frontpage is not an article. It is a link to an article and some guy's commentary. Of course, if you don't read the actual article you may have problems determining the facts.
In this case, I am wondering what RAMBUS is thinking.. Why are they doing this? Are they truly just a bunch of jerks? Why do they feel that they have rights to some of this technology? I mean, certainly someone there thinks they have a case.
Of course they think they have a legitimate claim. But then those two spammers in the other story today think they didn't do anything illegal. Rambus' behaviour has certainly been morally shady.
How people can determine that it's people causing this?
Nobody reasonable is claiming mankind is causing this. We don't know if we are. We do know that mankind is contributing and that we have some measure of control over that.
Cows put off more methane than the entirety of the human race.
The world population of cows (and other ruminants) has been radically increased by humanity. We're still indirectly responsible for any increase there.
I don't know why people make global warming a politcal issue. Oh, yes I do, there's money involved. What it boils down to is a fairly simple gambling equation. If global warming occurs it will cost us X. X is very large and each new study seems to make it larger. We can spend Y to try to combat global warming. Y is much smaller than X. If we do nothing we save Y but may have to pay X. If we do what we can we pay Y, possibly for no reason. In Feburary some 700 scientists from over 100 countries produced a report saying that the risks are very great, and that time is short. In fact they said that some effects will happen regardless of what we do so we better get ready.
People should also forget the impending ice age theory. It's irrelevant because it is easy to combat. If we find we're getting into a global ice age we just burn more hydrocarbons. That'll probably save us money.
...if they ever use any apps that require MS libraries.
... which haven't be reimplemented yet.
The whole point of Wine is to reimplement the MS libraries that come with the OS. Anything that is redistributed with the app is not a problem (app's license covers the use). Not that Wine is really usable without a full Windows install yet.
the lack of math for the first several years of elementary
In fact some schools won't start until 5th grade.
What do you mean by the word "math"? I assume you don't mean the basic skills like addition, multiplication, etc. Learning that stuff is much easier when you're very young (just like learning new languages is). It's boring, but without that you're handicapped latter on.
In the 4th and 5th grades then an applied math is taught, and the students are given a basic knowlege of geometry. The result?
By 8th grade these students have far accelerated above their peers in both Math and Science.
Again, what do you mean by "math" in "accelerated above their peers in math"? How is it measured? In particular I'd have a major problem with this theory if it's still talking about applied math. What I'd like to know is how these students are at the more pure mathematics (what's normal for that level? Advanced geometry and algebra?).
New definition of "throwing in the towel"
on
One-Click Reprise
·
· Score: 3
From BountyQuest:
In particular, it's highly unlikely that Amazon will be able to assert single-action claims in interactive TV, for example, even though the current patent covers that area. Even on the Web it's doubtful that Amazon can continue to enforce the 1-Click patent, except where alleged infringers utilize the precise sequence of software steps detailed in the patent. Simply put, the threat to e-commerce posed by the 1-Click patent is now severely diminished.
So they've found enough prior art to invalidate any use of the patent except in the most precise form. Unless you do implement exact same system as Amazon you are safe. BountyQuest haven't "thrown in the towel". They've won.
There's an old Soviet joke: "As long as they pretend to pay us, we'll pretend to work." It's not Capitalism or Communism, but human nature.
Human nature is it alright. People react to how they are treated. Many companies these days treat employees badly. Companies which display loyalty to their employees are fairly rare. Capitalism dictates that the bottom line is the fundamental concern so naturally that dictates company behaviour.
It's too bad we don't have a GPL-like agreement for free legal advice. Something like "This information is provided to all who want it, but the author cannot be held liable for its correctness or for any consequences of anyone acting upon it. Anyone is free to amend or comment on this information as they see fit."
It's downright unfair and dishonourable to develop a product and a brand identification, and then once the product is out, lay off more than 1/2 the staff that had been necessary for developing it.
I think you're being a little harsh. Eazel is not some megacorporation. You can be fairly sure that those people who made this decision personally knew almost everyone who was fired (at least if they were in the same office geographically, I don't know how Eazel was organized). They wouldn't have taken this action lightly. Most likely it was a case of firing some of the staff or closing doors completely. Of course if they don't get enough customers (because, say, some of them are boycotting the company) then they'll go under anyway.
Don't forget it's not just the coding that goes into something like Eazel (and developers were dismissed) but also the product strategy and marketing that must've gone into developing the idea behind something like the Eazal Services that they plan to offer.
I've never seen any marketing department contribute anything useful to the design or implementation of a product.
This is why employee loyalty no longer exists, because of stories like this.
Capitalism is the reason that employee loyalty doesn't exist. Just like companies only care about the bottom line so employees only care about the bottom line. Why should we hold higher ideals when the employers don't?
20 or so years ago Jerry Pournelle, writing in Byte, said that in the future (i.e. now) the money wouldn't be in selling software, it would be in selling support (like Red Hat) and documentation (like O'Reilly). He was right.
Jerry Pournelle's a smart guy. One of my favourite quotes of his: "I knew that I would live to see the first man on the moon. I never dreamed I'd see the last".
But doesn't this indicate that the "give away software, sell services" business model is not enough for profitability?
Given that Eazel released the product that enables those services today I think it might be a little early to be judging the profitability of the model. What this particular layoff indicates is that the market is no longer going to give companies unlimited cash and an unlimited timeframe to become profitable.
I recently got laid off from a tech company, and it is usually obvious from the get-go whether a company is going to succeed or not. For the company I worked for, it was no surprise.
You make it sound like Eazel are gone. Did you read the article? Eazel got rid of their marketting and testing departments. Concerning? A little, but the developers are still there. Suprising? Not really. What's the point of a marketing department when you don't currently have any services worth selling?
Eazel is a nice idea, and I was looking forward to trying out 1.0. However, I installed KDE 2.1 yesterday and was very, very impressed. Surely it will be the default in distros to come.
You realize that Nautilus 1.0 was released today, don't you? If you haven't tried it I don't think you're in any position to compare it to KDE or anything else.
Nothing dies in the open-source, but GNOME and Eazel probably just died in the Linux-business arena.
How do you figure that? Plenty of companies have laid of employees. Redhat was one. Are they dead in the "Linux-business" arena?
If one examines the history of computer programmes, one can see that the languages they are coded in have become ever more high level. We started of with machine code, moved into assembler, then to Fortran, then C, C++, and so forth. We have become ever more removed from the realities of the machine, and computer programming has become progressivley easier over the years.
While I would tentatively agree that languages are becomming higher level and in some ways easier to program in that's not the full story. You need to consider the development platform and also the context of the project. Languages like Java may be comparatively simple but their associated platforms are not. Look at the size of the Java class libraries - thousands of classes. And projects are getting more complex. Rather than "lowering the barrier", high level languages give us the ability to manage larger projects.
Slashdot Mirror
Could this be a reaction to that brain dead French court ruling on Yahoo? Maybe Google is filtering out Nazi related stuff if the reverse DNS indicates you're in France? Of course that wouldn't excuse them from only providing a French language page.
Here are a few pages with details:
wav of Cheetah purr,
Big cats,
Lion,
Puma.
As for the research, it's a well known fact that injured cats purr (see, e.g. Encyclopaedia Britannica) so it's hardly suprising that it might have some beneficial effect. Here's a link to the original article this story is on.
Someone else mentioned the idea of XOR'ing the source with a large random number which gives you another large random number. Is it illegal to publish either large random number? What about both together?
You're right about that. It would be on the order of 1/1000 of the original prime. In this case around 1397 digits long.Not in claim one they don't and NCR only have to prove you've infringed on one claim to have a case.
I don't know why people make global warming a politcal issue. Oh, yes I do, there's money involved. What it boils down to is a fairly simple gambling equation. If global warming occurs it will cost us X. X is very large and each new study seems to make it larger. We can spend Y to try to combat global warming. Y is much smaller than X. If we do nothing we save Y but may have to pay X. If we do what we can we pay Y, possibly for no reason. In Feburary some 700 scientists from over 100 countries produced a report saying that the risks are very great, and that time is short. In fact they said that some effects will happen regardless of what we do so we better get ready.
People should also forget the impending ice age theory. It's irrelevant because it is easy to combat. If we find we're getting into a global ice age we just burn more hydrocarbons. That'll probably save us money.
The whole point of Wine is to reimplement the MS libraries that come with the OS. Anything that is redistributed with the app is not a problem (app's license covers the use). Not that Wine is really usable without a full Windows install yet.