First, note that I believe rms has the right of it when he decries the use of the term ``intellectual property''. It screws up your thinking because it tosses many contradictory legal regimes into one bag, so that talking about, say, copyright, gets confused by concepts from trademark, or trade secrets, or patent, or....
True, copyright needs a major overhaul---it's outlived its usefulness in its current form. Arguably, patent law is even worse—certainly in the matter of patenting software.
Trademark has its problems, too, but just think about about a marketplace where trademark didn't exist. What's that widget you're buying? Oh, it's from Foo, Inc., and they make good stuff. But how do you know it isn't from Bar Corp., which pushes trash that masks itself as Fooware?
You'd need a chain of custody similar to what you see on precision instruments: ``Calibration traceable to the National Institute of Standards and Technology''. Except you couldn't be sure the attestation was kosher. You'd have to do a careful analysis of every object you bought more complex than, say, a spoon, to be sure you got what you paid for.
That's the scenario trademark law is written to avoid.
What we have here is a baby/bathwater situation caused by blind use of the term ``IP''.
You have one (faint) advantage with the (U.S.) federal government: they are still somewhat restrained by the Constitution. Nintendo, courtesy of the spineless Congress, has roughly no limitations on what they can do with the info.
Apple applied to register App Store as a trademark in the U.S., and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office approved the application, Apple said in the lawsuit.
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) has opposed the registration and the matter will be the subject of proceedings before a trademark appeal board, Apple said in the court filing.
The people who registered `Windows' think `App Store' is unworthy of a trademark registration?
True---I keep a list on my Palm Pilot of those clocks around the house that need resetting. The current count is nineteen, not including the ones that handle the transition themselves, and I need it to avoid gaslighting myself. (There was that year I took my daughter to Sunday school an hour early....)
Exactly this situation arose in the Feist case.
Rural Telephone Service compiled a list of its subscribers, Feist incorporated it into their book, and RTS sued. And lost. You can't copyright facts (thank God---imagine a world in which you could). There has to be some creative element, no matter how much ``sweat of the brow'' was expended. An alphabetic list of phone subscribers contains no creativity.
During WW II, Britain adopted Double Summer Time, skipping ahead two hours. It reverted to one hour after the war (modulo some funkiness a year or so later).
Unix & friends use a file or set of files with daylight-saving time changes; it's updated everytime somebody changes things. In Debian, it's in the tzdata package, described thus:
This package contains data required for the implementation of standard local time for many representative locations around the globe. It is updated periodically to reflect changes made by political bodies to time zone boundaries, UTC offsets, and daylight-saving rules.
Every time (*ahem*) some gov't tweaks the rules, the new info is encoded, and the updated package is sent out. Note that the superseded info is retained, so that if you ask about a time in 1974 in New York City, it'll adjust correctly for the idiotic Nixonian ``let's all go to work in the dark'' time.
Debian's files live under/usr/share/zoneinfo, and amount to a bit over 6MB of data.
True—there is literally no limit[1] to how much you can be in debt by shorting; you can only lose everything you own, less what the bankruptcy court leaves you.
—————
[1] Yeah, there's a limit to the double-precision variable holding the account's value, but let's not go there.
To be more detailed, there is literally no limit to how much
you can lose by shorting.
When you simply buy a stock,
the most you can lose is what you paid for it.
If the
company goes bankrupt, the stock price can't go below
$0.00.
If you short a stock,
you're borrowing shares to sell now,
betting that the replacements you need to return later will
be cheaper,
and you get to keep the difference.
But, if the price goes up, there's no limit.
You still need to buy the replacement
shares, at whatever they cost then—there is no way to know how much you might lose
if you bet wrong.
The bleedin' slideshow requires Flash 9, for crying in a bucket!
Why the hell do you need Flash to show a sequence of static images in succession!?
And to download the slides, you have to have two accounts: one on Facebook, and one on something called Slideshare.
Remember that any technology looks best a) when in
development,
and b) to its originators.
Take any and all numbers and promises and scale them back
from 50 to 80%.
Random thought:
Put one in the water upside down---can it right itself?
Because it's guaranteed that in heavy seas they'll be
flipped over every so often.
On the other hand,
given that the waves could flip it back up,
as well,
on average you'd have 50% of them rightside up at any time.
It might be easier to double the number of gizmos than to
design them to be self-righting.
As shown,
there's no provision for navigation lights.
I believe under the maritime
Rules
of the Road [PDF],
one of these would be classified as a
``vessel not under command'',
in which case it should display two red lights,
one above the other,
at night,
and two black balls ditto during the day.
(Rule 27 (a))
I don't know whether these are large enough to require such
displays,
but hit one of them in a sailboat at good speed,
and you could be in real trouble.
Additionally,
a radar reflector would be a Very Good Thing.
Unfortunately,
that might be impractical due to wind resistance.
The concept of detecting multiple levels of viruses' sense of fun makes my head hurt.
I think I can deal with a single level:
``Are we having fun yet [yN]?''
I, too, have noticed a 50% drop in spam, but with a notable characteristic. I've been getting tons of junk addressed to numeric ``users''. That is, things like 096213@example.com, or 6917329@example.com. (This obviously makes it trivial to filter; I've wondered what kind of an idiot would do such a thing.)
A couple of days ago, it went away. Zip, zilch, zero, nada. To a first Occamatic approximation, they must have nailed the generator of this stuff.
In 1977, I left college in my senior year for a job offer,
and have never had a problem.
It may be that I've been in embedded systems, which is
a real niche field, but no one has ever even
mentioned my lack of a degree. The only place it might
count is with the personnel (``HR'') department, where they
know nothing about the job, and only do a diff on
your resume and the job posting. So long as you either
know someone who can introduce you to the hiring
manager,
apply to a company small enough that they have no
meaningful personnel department, or
apply to a larger engineering-driven company where the
personnel department knows its place,
the lack of a degree should have no effect.
(This assumes you have the chops in the first place.)
On the other hand, it couldn't hurt.:-) And if you
select your classes carefully, you can learn a lot of
fascinating stuff.
LWN is a going concern, paying its employees
(a pittance, I suspect), ISP, and bandwidth from
subscriptions. This is because when LWN
announced its demise due to lack of funding, an
outcry from readers, with offers of money, caused
them to reconsider.
The one-week delay for certain juicy bits
is an inducement for the general public to
help by subscribing.
If you don't like it, don't read it, and in any
case don't complain about how an excellent site
stays in business.
Too true, and one reason most states' election
laws put fairly strict limits on who may get an
absentee ballot, and for what reasons.
I suspect the justification is that we'll pay the
price of a few paid-for ballots in order to extend
the vote to
that much larger population which can't get to
the polls in person.
Slashdot Mirror
True, copyright needs a major overhaul---it's outlived its usefulness in its current form. Arguably, patent law is even worse—certainly in the matter of patenting software.
Trademark has its problems, too, but just think about about a marketplace where trademark didn't exist. What's that widget you're buying? Oh, it's from Foo, Inc., and they make good stuff. But how do you know it isn't from Bar Corp., which pushes trash that masks itself as Fooware? You'd need a chain of custody similar to what you see on precision instruments: ``Calibration traceable to the National Institute of Standards and Technology''. Except you couldn't be sure the attestation was kosher. You'd have to do a careful analysis of every object you bought more complex than, say, a spoon, to be sure you got what you paid for.
That's the scenario trademark law is written to avoid. What we have here is a baby/bathwater situation caused by blind use of the term ``IP''.
You have one (faint) advantage with the (U.S.) federal government: they are still somewhat restrained by the Constitution. Nintendo, courtesy of the spineless Congress, has roughly no limitations on what they can do with the info.
Funny you should ask that. When I first submitted the story, I had typed ``Sony'' at one point, instead of ``Nintendo''.
Damn! I completely forgot the tags. I guess some folks really need it.
Can't they sample the atmosphere over Europe with meteorology balloons?
Like Brin, Page, and Schmidt? I'm not sure whether that's a typo or genius.
The people who registered `Windows' think `App Store' is unworthy of a trademark registration?
True---I keep a list on my Palm Pilot of those clocks around the house that need resetting. The current count is nineteen, not including the ones that handle the transition themselves, and I need it to avoid gaslighting myself. (There was that year I took my daughter to Sunday school an hour early....)
Exactly this situation arose in the Feist case. Rural Telephone Service compiled a list of its subscribers, Feist incorporated it into their book, and RTS sued. And lost. You can't copyright facts (thank God---imagine a world in which you could). There has to be some creative element, no matter how much ``sweat of the brow'' was expended. An alphabetic list of phone subscribers contains no creativity.
During WW II, Britain adopted Double Summer Time, skipping ahead two hours. It reverted to one hour after the war (modulo some funkiness a year or so later).
The above comment should have been in reply to the first comment, asking about Y2K-like problems.
Every time (*ahem*) some gov't tweaks the rules, the new info is encoded, and the updated package is sent out. Note that the superseded info is retained, so that if you ask about a time in 1974 in New York City, it'll adjust correctly for the idiotic Nixonian ``let's all go to work in the dark'' time.
Debian's files live under /usr/share/zoneinfo, and amount to a bit over 6MB of data.
True—there is literally no limit[1] to how much you can be in debt by shorting; you can only lose everything you own, less what the bankruptcy court leaves you.
—————
[1] Yeah, there's a limit to the double-precision variable holding the account's value, but let's not go there.
To be more detailed, there is literally no limit to how much you can lose by shorting.
When you simply buy a stock, the most you can lose is what you paid for it. If the company goes bankrupt, the stock price can't go below $0.00.
If you short a stock, you're borrowing shares to sell now, betting that the replacements you need to return later will be cheaper, and you get to keep the difference. But, if the price goes up, there's no limit. You still need to buy the replacement shares, at whatever they cost then—there is no way to know how much you might lose if you bet wrong.
The bleedin' slideshow requires Flash 9 , for crying in a bucket! Why the hell do you need Flash to show a sequence of static images in succession!? And to download the slides, you have to have two accounts: one on Facebook, and one on something called Slideshare.
Screw it.
</rant>
(Be glad I'm sparing you my take on Javascript.)
A vast difference, especially when you check the sorts of cases in which Justices Thomas and Scalia have failed to recuse themselves.
Remember that any technology looks best a) when in development, and b) to its originators. Take any and all numbers and promises and scale them back from 50 to 80%.
Random thought: Put one in the water upside down---can it right itself? Because it's guaranteed that in heavy seas they'll be flipped over every so often.
On the other hand, given that the waves could flip it back up, as well, on average you'd have 50% of them rightside up at any time. It might be easier to double the number of gizmos than to design them to be self-righting.
As shown, there's no provision for navigation lights.
I believe under the maritime Rules of the Road [PDF], one of these would be classified as a ``vessel not under command'', in which case it should display two red lights, one above the other, at night, and two black balls ditto during the day. (Rule 27 (a)) I don't know whether these are large enough to require such displays, but hit one of them in a sailboat at good speed, and you could be in real trouble.
Additionally, a radar reflector would be a Very Good Thing. Unfortunately, that might be impractical due to wind resistance.
Sourceforge, perhaps?
The concept of detecting multiple levels of viruses' sense of fun makes my head hurt. I think I can deal with a single level: ``Are we having fun yet [yN]?''
A couple of days ago, it went away. Zip, zilch, zero, nada. To a first Occamatic approximation, they must have nailed the generator of this stuff.
It may be that I've been in embedded systems, which is a real niche field, but no one has ever even mentioned my lack of a degree. The only place it might count is with the personnel (``HR'') department, where they know nothing about the job, and only do a diff on your resume and the job posting. So long as you either
- know someone who can introduce you to the hiring
manager,
- apply to a company small enough that they have no
meaningful personnel department, or
- apply to a larger engineering-driven company where the
personnel department knows its place,
the lack of a degree should have no effect. (This assumes you have the chops in the first place.)On the other hand, it couldn't hurt. :-) And if you
select your classes carefully, you can learn a lot of
fascinating stuff.
You sound like you're in a snit about it.
LWN is a going concern, paying its employees (a pittance, I suspect), ISP, and bandwidth from subscriptions. This is because when LWN announced its demise due to lack of funding, an outcry from readers, with offers of money, caused them to reconsider.
The one-week delay for certain juicy bits is an inducement for the general public to help by subscribing.
If you don't like it, don't read it, and in any case don't complain about how an excellent site stays in business.
Too true, and one reason most states' election laws put fairly strict limits on who may get an absentee ballot, and for what reasons. I suspect the justification is that we'll pay the price of a few paid-for ballots in order to extend the vote to that much larger population which can't get to the polls in person.
As a result, I'm suspicious of the few experiments with mail-in ballots. It exposes the entire electorate to the same problems. See, for example, a California town's forum and A news column on Washington State's state-wide mail-in balloting.