It's for the Pi symbol followed by a period. Literally. "The mark consists of the pi mathematical symbol followed by a period." So if I had a shirt that said "I like Pi." (using the symbol for Pi), my shirt would be in violation of his trademark. Furthermore, he might try claiming that just showing Pi by itself would be "confusingly similar." Not that he'd be successful, but he could threaten lawsuits which might make others back down due to an inability to fight a legal battle.
Everyone knows that God is everywhere at once. How is this possible? He's travelling really, really fast. This means that there's some massive time dilation going on. So obviously what was "six days" for him was billions of years for the rest of the Universe.
In all seriousness, though, the next time someone tells me that X can't be true because it's not in the bible, I'm going to pull out my smartphone and ask where smartphones are in the bible. Or computers. Or integrated circuitry. Then, I'll play some Angry Birds on my obviously non-existent smartphone.
Why do you think that the United States (and by this I mean the corporations that heavily lobby the US government) is pushing for harsh copyright laws in worldwide treaties? This way they can ensure that DVD ripping programs (among other things) are illegal everywhere and can be removed from the Internet no matter where they are hosted. And, of course, if anyone who programs a DVD ripping program sets foot in the US, they can be arrested for criminal copyright infringement. (Not that such a thing should really exist - except maybe for those outfits that sell bootleg copies of DVDs/Blu-Rays - but the MPAA keeps pushing for the federal government to prosecute copyright infringement as if it were a top priority crime.)
They can have one of those fan contests where a fan goes onto the court and tries to do something to win a prize. Only instead of taking a shot from half court, they'll need to throw more chairs than Ballmer or Knight.
That's what I always thought about the Star Trek transporters. Are Kirk, Picard, etc the same people as when they first began? Or have they died countless times with "transporter clones" taking over? If they are the same people, how do you explain situations like the duplicate Riker? If they aren't the same people, the transporter room is a murder factory, sacrificing people left and right to make sure that only the clones remain. (Well, the clones and McCoy.)
I've always said that, if Star Trek transporters were invented tomorrow, I wouldn't take one. The idea of having all of my atoms destroyed so other atoms could be reconstructed on the other side that would hopefully resemble me 100% seems creepy to me. Would the transported-me be the same as me? Would my consciousness move to the new me? Or would I cease to be with new-me taking over? This isn't even getting into the various transporter malfunctions that seemed to happen.
So what's worse than that? "We're going to destroy your atoms and then slowly 3D print you on the other side. We just hope that no 'paper jam' type situation occurs or else you might arrive in pieces. Don't worry, though. After the blinding pain and death, we can try again. And again. And again."
Didn't the author of the Patriot Act say that recently. He was shocked, shocked! that his bill is being used/abused in the manner that detractors of the bill have been saying it would be for years.
It's definitely a morality problem, no question. Unfortunately, it's also a "subculture" because there is a decent-sized group of people who don't see the morality issue and think this behavior is just fine. Hopefully, the number of people in this subculture will shrink into nothingness ASAP, but that won't happen if this problem gets swept under the rug and ignored. Things like this thrive in the dark.
It is a disability. A developmental disability. What is isn't is a mental illness.
Yes, he has some very good abilities partly thanks to Asperger's. For example, a higher-than-average intelligence and the ability to see things in a way that neurotypical (non-autistic) people can't. He also seems to be naturally gifted with computers - which should come in handy for him later in life.
However, he can also be overwhelmed by sensory experiences. He can find transitions difficult to cope with. He has the social skills of a child 4 years younger than he is. When he gets upset, he can find it difficult to communicate what he wants. (Sometimes when he's not upset also, but being upset makes it much worse.) All these are disabilities when dealing with other people.
What the diagnosis does for my son is gives his teachers, my wife, and I knowledge of how to help him. Before the diagnosis, we kept making stabs in the dark on how to help and were failing each time. Now, we know what makes him tick and where his challenges lay. We can help him overcome his challenges while helping him to excel in the areas he is good at.
(And, no, he can't sit in a boring room doing boring tasks for a long time. However, if he finds the task enjoyable, he can focus on it for hours upon hours even if someone else doesn't see the enjoyment in it.)
No, it might not prevent the crazies from going on a misogyny-fueled murder rampage, but it will help the women who are the victims of day-to-day misogyny. If a women goes to a convention, is grouped by some idiot "because her costume was skimpy", and the rest of the people present ignore the situation, that makes it worse. If more people stood up and told the idiot that this wasn't acceptable, the misogynist idiots would be marginalized and would need to change their behavior if they wanted to participate in society. Maybe they would even turn off the path that leads to the crazy actions of Rodger. Meanwhile, women would feel more comfortable in day-to-day life.
How many of us were bullied growing up? How many of us would have loved for someone to have walked over to our bullies and tell them "This is NOT ok. Do NOT treat this person like this"? I know I would have. It would have saved me years of torment when I couldn't speak up for myself. How can we not stand up for others when they need help?
There is a subculture that excuses all that men do because "boys will be boys" and because "the girls must have been asking for it." This manifests itself in small towns where the star football player can rape a girl and she's driven out of town for daring to file charges. Or in conventions where women are groped because some jerk thinks the woman's costume is "skimpy" - thus that somehow equals permission to grab her body - and the rest of the convention goers either keep quiet or agree that the woman shouldn't have worn such a revealing outfit if she didn't want to be touched.
You and I might not engage in this behavior, but that's not enough. "All that evil needs to triumph is for a good man to do nothing." If we see any behavior like this (and this goes for women being assaulted as well as men being ganged up on for being different), we must immediately assist the person, summon the authorities, and stand up to any cultural institutions that deem this as being perfectly fine.
If anything, I'd say it makes it worse. I was bullied extensively through high school (as I suspect many other people here were). It got to the point that I was paranoid and would think that anyone laughing MUST be laughing at me. I never wound up suicidal or violent, but with a slight push one way or the other, I could have easily wound up like that. Knowing how all that felt, making someone feel that bad (or worse) is completely against everything shred of my being.
First off, Rodger's "diagnosis" was the family guessing - not a real diagnosis. They've since backed down from this.
My son was actually diagnosed as having Asperger's Syndrome (by a doctor, not by a guessing family member) so I've done a lot of research when it comes to Asperger's. In fact, it's not a mental disorder at all. Asperger's is a developmental disability. Among other things, people with Asperger's don't "get" socialization. They want to socialize, but don't know how to. They also often have to deal with sensory overload.
Imagine you wound up in a foreign country where you didn't know the language or customs, everything smelled weird, everyone talked extremely loudly, and bright lights seemed to shine in your eyes where ever you went. You'd likely get frustrated quickly over being unable to communicate with anyone - much less those smells/sounds/lights assaulting your senses. You'd long for a nice, quiet, dark spot to calm down and relax. This is every day life for people with Asperger's.
However, all that being said, people with Asperger's aren't more likely to attack people - despite what some alarmist media reports try to claim. In fact, they are more likely to be the victims of violence or to hurt themselves. On the rare instances when someone with Asperger's attacks someone, it is in a fit of frustration and is "lashing out", not a well planned "execution style" attack. (My son will get frustrated and flail his limbs. When he's frustrated, he doesn't have the mental ability to plan anything at all.)
Anyone who says "Asperger's caused him to kill those people" is wrong and is hurting people with Asperger's Syndrome.
In what might have been a fit of irony, Rodgers tried killing some sorority girls who rejected him, but they didn't notice him at the door so he left.
As far as "not my problem" goes, I think being a good person involves two things: 1) Treating others with respect and 2) Standing up when others aren't treated with respect. You and I might have the first one down, but we've got to be vigilant not to shrug off idiots like Rodgers when we see their behavior first-hand. Instead, we need to stand up and tell these people that this behavior is NOT appropriate at all.
I'd further paraphrase John Oliver: Listen up, fellow self-pitying nerd boys — In the past, we WERE victims. We WERE underdogs. We WERE ones who were bullied and ridiculed and tormented because of who we were and what we liked. We were excluded from groups because we weren't "cool enough." We should know how it feels when someone does this to you and, thus, should NEVER, EVER do this to another human being. We should NEVER exclude someone because we deem them "not knowledgeable enough" (especially not if that's the "cover excuse" with the real reason being that they are a different gender). We should never tell someone that they are asking for the treatment that some jerks are giving them because of who they are or how they are dressed. Did we deserve being tormented on a daily basis because we liked Star Trek or played D&D? We definitely shouldn't be those jerks who think that forcing themselves on a person is somehow "all in good fun." (If you're going to exclude anyone from geek culture, exclude those jerks. IMO, anyone who thinks bullying someone - or worse - is acceptable behavior isn't a "real geek.") Furthermore, if we see EVER someone treating another human being in this manner, we should leap to their aid immediately. This isn't a man/woman thing either. It should be a "decent human" thing.
Copyright doesn't need to be outlawed but it does need to be severely overhauled. Simply changing the term length back to 14 years plus a one-time 14 year renewal would fix a lot of problems.
Sadly, this is one reason why you'll likely never see a "Muppet Babies" Blu-Ray or streaming release. That cartoon used snippets of various movies in their episodes. They would need to get permission from each rights holder to include those scenes.
Right. Even if Netflix could legally stream the video on one DVD to one home at a time (ala a DVD version of Aereo), having a rack of millions of DVD players - each with one DVD in it - would be hard to manage. And if they tried ripping the DVDs, they would suffer the same fate that MP3.com did when they tried ripping CDs for their music locker offering. (I'm sure the studios would love for Netflix to do this as it would give them an excuse to sue Netflix into oblivion.)
Exactly this, though I'd add that the studios have this odd fixation on Netflix. They realize they make money from it, but also think it is killing off their DVD/Blu-Ray sales and thus view it as an enemy. They want Netflix dead and giving Netflix unfettered streaming rights to new selections goes against that. Instead, they will grudgingly give Netflix access to older titles that don't make them that much in DVD sales anyway while pushing their newest "streaming" program that is doomed to fail because it was designed by the studios for the studios with customers as an after-thought.
Slashdot Mirror
The reason all the devils are here is that they can't stand Hell anymore. It hasn't been the same since all those lawyers arrived.
Yes, formatting messed that up.
This is the trademark: http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=85785006&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=statusSearch
It's for the Pi symbol followed by a period. Literally. "The mark consists of the pi mathematical symbol followed by a period." So if I had a shirt that said "I like Pi." (using the symbol for Pi), my shirt would be in violation of his trademark. Furthermore, he might try claiming that just showing Pi by itself would be "confusingly similar." Not that he'd be successful, but he could threaten lawsuits which might make others back down due to an inability to fight a legal battle.
He's also filed for the common Internet "I Love" shorthand: I <3 http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=85481027&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=statusSearch
As he doesn't currently seem to be USING these trademarks at all, he should automatically lose all rights to them.
Slashdot mucked up the formatting. (Of course, I should have seen this in the preview.)
Just replace "I 3" with "I <3" above.
Also, here's his new trademark: http://trademarks.justia.com/854/81/i-3-85481027.html
This guy is seriously trademarking the common shorthand for "I love" next: I 3
First Pi (with a period after it) and now I 3. What other common symbols will he attempt to trademark? LOL? RTFA? HTTP?
Everyone knows that God is everywhere at once. How is this possible? He's travelling really, really fast. This means that there's some massive time dilation going on. So obviously what was "six days" for him was billions of years for the rest of the Universe.
In all seriousness, though, the next time someone tells me that X can't be true because it's not in the bible, I'm going to pull out my smartphone and ask where smartphones are in the bible. Or computers. Or integrated circuitry. Then, I'll play some Angry Birds on my obviously non-existent smartphone.
I never found relativity to be that hard or confusing. Now quantum mechanics on the other hand.... *shudders*
Why do you think that the United States (and by this I mean the corporations that heavily lobby the US government) is pushing for harsh copyright laws in worldwide treaties? This way they can ensure that DVD ripping programs (among other things) are illegal everywhere and can be removed from the Internet no matter where they are hosted. And, of course, if anyone who programs a DVD ripping program sets foot in the US, they can be arrested for criminal copyright infringement. (Not that such a thing should really exist - except maybe for those outfits that sell bootleg copies of DVDs/Blu-Rays - but the MPAA keeps pushing for the federal government to prosecute copyright infringement as if it were a top priority crime.)
They can have one of those fan contests where a fan goes onto the court and tries to do something to win a prize. Only instead of taking a shot from half court, they'll need to throw more chairs than Ballmer or Knight.
Or worse... paper jam!
That's what I always thought about the Star Trek transporters. Are Kirk, Picard, etc the same people as when they first began? Or have they died countless times with "transporter clones" taking over? If they are the same people, how do you explain situations like the duplicate Riker? If they aren't the same people, the transporter room is a murder factory, sacrificing people left and right to make sure that only the clones remain. (Well, the clones and McCoy.)
I've always said that, if Star Trek transporters were invented tomorrow, I wouldn't take one. The idea of having all of my atoms destroyed so other atoms could be reconstructed on the other side that would hopefully resemble me 100% seems creepy to me. Would the transported-me be the same as me? Would my consciousness move to the new me? Or would I cease to be with new-me taking over? This isn't even getting into the various transporter malfunctions that seemed to happen.
So what's worse than that? "We're going to destroy your atoms and then slowly 3D print you on the other side. We just hope that no 'paper jam' type situation occurs or else you might arrive in pieces. Don't worry, though. After the blinding pain and death, we can try again. And again. And again."
Didn't the author of the Patriot Act say that recently. He was shocked, shocked! that his bill is being used/abused in the manner that detractors of the bill have been saying it would be for years.
It's definitely a morality problem, no question. Unfortunately, it's also a "subculture" because there is a decent-sized group of people who don't see the morality issue and think this behavior is just fine. Hopefully, the number of people in this subculture will shrink into nothingness ASAP, but that won't happen if this problem gets swept under the rug and ignored. Things like this thrive in the dark.
It is a disability. A developmental disability. What is isn't is a mental illness.
Yes, he has some very good abilities partly thanks to Asperger's. For example, a higher-than-average intelligence and the ability to see things in a way that neurotypical (non-autistic) people can't. He also seems to be naturally gifted with computers - which should come in handy for him later in life.
However, he can also be overwhelmed by sensory experiences. He can find transitions difficult to cope with. He has the social skills of a child 4 years younger than he is. When he gets upset, he can find it difficult to communicate what he wants. (Sometimes when he's not upset also, but being upset makes it much worse.) All these are disabilities when dealing with other people.
What the diagnosis does for my son is gives his teachers, my wife, and I knowledge of how to help him. Before the diagnosis, we kept making stabs in the dark on how to help and were failing each time. Now, we know what makes him tick and where his challenges lay. We can help him overcome his challenges while helping him to excel in the areas he is good at.
(And, no, he can't sit in a boring room doing boring tasks for a long time. However, if he finds the task enjoyable, he can focus on it for hours upon hours even if someone else doesn't see the enjoyment in it.)
No, it might not prevent the crazies from going on a misogyny-fueled murder rampage, but it will help the women who are the victims of day-to-day misogyny. If a women goes to a convention, is grouped by some idiot "because her costume was skimpy", and the rest of the people present ignore the situation, that makes it worse. If more people stood up and told the idiot that this wasn't acceptable, the misogynist idiots would be marginalized and would need to change their behavior if they wanted to participate in society. Maybe they would even turn off the path that leads to the crazy actions of Rodger. Meanwhile, women would feel more comfortable in day-to-day life.
How many of us were bullied growing up? How many of us would have loved for someone to have walked over to our bullies and tell them "This is NOT ok. Do NOT treat this person like this"? I know I would have. It would have saved me years of torment when I couldn't speak up for myself. How can we not stand up for others when they need help?
There is a subculture that excuses all that men do because "boys will be boys" and because "the girls must have been asking for it." This manifests itself in small towns where the star football player can rape a girl and she's driven out of town for daring to file charges. Or in conventions where women are groped because some jerk thinks the woman's costume is "skimpy" - thus that somehow equals permission to grab her body - and the rest of the convention goers either keep quiet or agree that the woman shouldn't have worn such a revealing outfit if she didn't want to be touched.
You and I might not engage in this behavior, but that's not enough. "All that evil needs to triumph is for a good man to do nothing." If we see any behavior like this (and this goes for women being assaulted as well as men being ganged up on for being different), we must immediately assist the person, summon the authorities, and stand up to any cultural institutions that deem this as being perfectly fine.
If anything, I'd say it makes it worse. I was bullied extensively through high school (as I suspect many other people here were). It got to the point that I was paranoid and would think that anyone laughing MUST be laughing at me. I never wound up suicidal or violent, but with a slight push one way or the other, I could have easily wound up like that. Knowing how all that felt, making someone feel that bad (or worse) is completely against everything shred of my being.
First off, Rodger's "diagnosis" was the family guessing - not a real diagnosis. They've since backed down from this.
My son was actually diagnosed as having Asperger's Syndrome (by a doctor, not by a guessing family member) so I've done a lot of research when it comes to Asperger's. In fact, it's not a mental disorder at all. Asperger's is a developmental disability. Among other things, people with Asperger's don't "get" socialization. They want to socialize, but don't know how to. They also often have to deal with sensory overload.
Imagine you wound up in a foreign country where you didn't know the language or customs, everything smelled weird, everyone talked extremely loudly, and bright lights seemed to shine in your eyes where ever you went. You'd likely get frustrated quickly over being unable to communicate with anyone - much less those smells/sounds/lights assaulting your senses. You'd long for a nice, quiet, dark spot to calm down and relax. This is every day life for people with Asperger's.
However, all that being said, people with Asperger's aren't more likely to attack people - despite what some alarmist media reports try to claim. In fact, they are more likely to be the victims of violence or to hurt themselves. On the rare instances when someone with Asperger's attacks someone, it is in a fit of frustration and is "lashing out", not a well planned "execution style" attack. (My son will get frustrated and flail his limbs. When he's frustrated, he doesn't have the mental ability to plan anything at all.)
Anyone who says "Asperger's caused him to kill those people" is wrong and is hurting people with Asperger's Syndrome.
In what might have been a fit of irony, Rodgers tried killing some sorority girls who rejected him, but they didn't notice him at the door so he left.
As far as "not my problem" goes, I think being a good person involves two things: 1) Treating others with respect and 2) Standing up when others aren't treated with respect. You and I might have the first one down, but we've got to be vigilant not to shrug off idiots like Rodgers when we see their behavior first-hand. Instead, we need to stand up and tell these people that this behavior is NOT appropriate at all.
I'd further paraphrase John Oliver: Listen up, fellow self-pitying nerd boys — In the past, we WERE victims. We WERE underdogs. We WERE ones who were bullied and ridiculed and tormented because of who we were and what we liked. We were excluded from groups because we weren't "cool enough." We should know how it feels when someone does this to you and, thus, should NEVER, EVER do this to another human being. We should NEVER exclude someone because we deem them "not knowledgeable enough" (especially not if that's the "cover excuse" with the real reason being that they are a different gender). We should never tell someone that they are asking for the treatment that some jerks are giving them because of who they are or how they are dressed. Did we deserve being tormented on a daily basis because we liked Star Trek or played D&D? We definitely shouldn't be those jerks who think that forcing themselves on a person is somehow "all in good fun." (If you're going to exclude anyone from geek culture, exclude those jerks. IMO, anyone who thinks bullying someone - or worse - is acceptable behavior isn't a "real geek.") Furthermore, if we see EVER someone treating another human being in this manner, we should leap to their aid immediately. This isn't a man/woman thing either. It should be a "decent human" thing.
Copyright doesn't need to be outlawed but it does need to be severely overhauled. Simply changing the term length back to 14 years plus a one-time 14 year renewal would fix a lot of problems.
Sadly, this is one reason why you'll likely never see a "Muppet Babies" Blu-Ray or streaming release. That cartoon used snippets of various movies in their episodes. They would need to get permission from each rights holder to include those scenes.
Right. Even if Netflix could legally stream the video on one DVD to one home at a time (ala a DVD version of Aereo), having a rack of millions of DVD players - each with one DVD in it - would be hard to manage. And if they tried ripping the DVDs, they would suffer the same fate that MP3.com did when they tried ripping CDs for their music locker offering. (I'm sure the studios would love for Netflix to do this as it would give them an excuse to sue Netflix into oblivion.)
Exactly this, though I'd add that the studios have this odd fixation on Netflix. They realize they make money from it, but also think it is killing off their DVD/Blu-Ray sales and thus view it as an enemy. They want Netflix dead and giving Netflix unfettered streaming rights to new selections goes against that. Instead, they will grudgingly give Netflix access to older titles that don't make them that much in DVD sales anyway while pushing their newest "streaming" program that is doomed to fail because it was designed by the studios for the studios with customers as an after-thought.