I'm not sure why the poster mentioned Amazon's searchable text, all the comment has done is serve to confuse a great many of the slashbots who have posted (not that that's hard).
This patent appears to cover Amazon's Z-Shops, not eBay's auction system, not text searching of books, and not just a business method. It covers a way to, in essence, share catalog information among small merchants in a marketplace. Having had a small online retail shop in the past, I can tell you that this is a great idea, and I wish Yahoo! Stores had had it back when I still had a shop.
Did you take it one step further and contact the companies doing business with your ex-employer, to let them know what was happening? Or did you at least get a fat check to ensure your silence?
I can't use Opera or Mozilla at work, but I can install the Google Toolbar, which also blocks pop-ups. What's great is with one click, I can allow pop-ups on a given site (like, say, my WebMail, so it still pops-up the notification that I have new spam to delete).
So you're OK with walking a mile to get something to eat? Even cavemen were smart enough to keep half an elk laying around in the back of the cave in case they got the munchies after knocking their caveboots with their cavewomen.
On top of this, I can tell you've never served in the military. Anyone who has can tell you that living in spartan spaces, with a communal chow hall instead of the convenience of a fridge and microwave sucks ass.
"Now, Now! The ACLU is doing all it can to protect the Bill of rights."
Not all of it, they're not. The usually do a good job defending the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th amendments, generally ignore the 9th (except as it applies to abortion), usually forget about the 10th (states' rights? didn't we fight a war over that one?), and completely ignore the 2nd (when was the last time you saw the ACLU defend the rights of law abiding gun owners?). They also haven't filed any lawsuits under the 3rd, but then when was the last time some soldiers tried to bed down on your futon without your permission?
So while they do a mostly good job, they need to step up to the plate a little more on Mr. Madison's Amendment No. 2.
Personnally, I think God is more concerned with how we treat each other than if we have faith in him. To quote Mother Abigail from "The Stand" when someone told her he didn't believe in God: "That's alright, He believes in you." Osama bin Laden has lots of faith in God, but something tells me he won't be wandering streets of gold come Judgement Day.
That said, belief in a supreme being who weighs our actions can be a powerful motivator for living a good life (it can also be a tool to oppress people, unfortunately, but then so is pretty much anything else).
"We have come such a long way. This country got its founding to a great extent (not entirely) from the civilian illegal combatants that harrassed the resident British forces. It seems ingenuous [sic] to glorify them then turn around and condem [sic] others for the same tactic. But maybe your people were around here when mine were fighting the British."
Wow, do you have a skewed understanding of history (that, or what exactly comprises "illegal combatants"). Pretty much all of the colonial militias not only wore uniforms and were organized into a formal heirarchy, they also did not hide among the civilian populace. Even the ones who used guerilla tactics, or who didn't wear uniforms all the time, didn't hide among civilians.
Comparing our forefathers with the murderous thugs of the Taliban and al Queda does not strengthen your case, and it sullies the memory of *real* freedom fighters.
Don't forget the fourth category, illegal combatants. These are people who don't wear uniforms, try to mingle in with the civilian population, but strike out at other armies. They have considerably less legal standing than the other catagories, at least under US law (reference: US Supreme Court case ex parte Quirin). These are the people being held at Guatanamo.
It's important that we *not* treat terrorists, spies, and other illegal combatants the same as we treat legal combatants. If we treated them the way you seem to think we should, it lowers the bar for civilized warfare (oximoron, I know). There has to be a reason for armies to wear uniforms and operate openly, otherwise things would quickly degenerate more than they have. Besides, if someone chooses to hide among the civilian population, putting them at more risk, then he should pay a higher price when he's caught.
And note that I said "US law". I realize international law, such as the Geneva Convention (to which the US is a signatory) doesn't have the same distinction. But, so far as I know, there's nothing stopping us from having this distinction. If there were, and we really were violating a treaty, I'm sure the Senate would've put a stop to it long ago. Since they're the ones who ratify treaties, it would be in their best interests to make sure the executive branch was playing by their rules. You can't tell me there isn't one Senator who wouldn't've raised a fuss (a certain one from Conneticut, now running for his Party's nomination for President, comes to mind).
OMFG, I can't believe a mainstream, reputable newsrag would allow one of their flunkies to throw around epithets all day long like that. "Linux crunchies"??? WTF, are we some kind of breakfast cereal, now?
I wish I had a subscription to Forbes, so I could cancel it.
Around the time my dad bought us a C-128, my brother and I started playing Star Frontiers, the sci-fi role playing game from TSR. I sat down and, in one weekend, wrote up character generators, default templates for several new races, even wrote a poker program so I could have my characters go into a casino and make extra money (the logic wasn't very good, I invariably ended up with about a trillion credits, which the GM never let me use). We had a 1541, so I saved it all to floppy and made copies for my friends so they could run it on their C-64s.
One of my buddies wrote up a program to let us draw out diagrams for our cars in Car Wars, though we still used pencil and paper to actually design them.
Oops, mistake in *my* math. Only multiplied by 60 once instead of twice, so I inadvertently wrote out the speed per minute, not hour. So it clocks in at 134 GB per hour, better than SDLT 320. And it's cheap enough that you can put 10 disks together in 1+0 (5 mirrors, striped together), and still come out ahead on budget.
Um, you're not quite up to speed on tape, are you?
Modern tape systems can easily hold anywhere from 110 GB up to 440 GB per cartridge. So one tape, which is far less likely to fail than this crappy IDE disk, will hold far more bits. Plus, the read times on tape are much better than a 5400 RPM IDE disk (for instance, SDLT 320 tapes can read/write 115 GB per hour, compare this to a paltry 4 GB per hour on this beast, according to the article).
The catch, of course, is that a SDLT320 drive costs about $10,000, and each cartridge costs around $100. So for the home user who doesn't want to have to take out a second mortgage just to store the entire Warner Music catalog, with space left over for the Library of Congress, this new disk makes sense.
"So you want to complain about it? How about offering a valid solution?"
OK, here's one: it's called QoS on a switched network. Instead of saying "everyone gets 100Mb connectivity, more than enough to saturate our single T3, each", set the network to only allow 500kb per LAN drop. Simple solution, and solves the problem nicely without having to poke around inside students' computers.
At the same time, monitor bandwidth usage on a per port basis (gee, too bad there isn't a free multi-router traffic grapher out there somewhere). Any user that consistently pegs their bandwidth cap gets a stern talking to from the local network honchos.
"btw, can we use that as a noun yet? Like a gaggle of geese, a herd a cattle or a school of fish, can we have a Google of computers?"
Considering Google coopted a math term (googleplex, sometimes just called 'google'), which was taken from a cartoon characters (Barney Google, one of the original Snuffy Smith characters), I don't see why not.
"It seems to me that this is essentially an admission that Windoze as it comes from the box is not fit for use. Whatever the hell their EULA says, there has to be some implied fitness for use warranty on any product that people buy."
Really? What about section 11 of the GPL (note specifically the fitness clause)?
I was going to paste that section, but/. stopped me (the section is in all caps). Here's a link to the GPL, instead: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html.
Personnally, I agree with you, and think that section of the GPL is bunk (and probably the section most likely to be tossed, should it ever be tested in court). But as it stands, software can be sold or given away without a warranty of any kind. Hopefully this suit against MS will change that.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sure why the poster mentioned Amazon's searchable text, all the comment has done is serve to confuse a great many of the slashbots who have posted (not that that's hard).
This patent appears to cover Amazon's Z-Shops, not eBay's auction system, not text searching of books, and not just a business method. It covers a way to, in essence, share catalog information among small merchants in a marketplace. Having had a small online retail shop in the past, I can tell you that this is a great idea, and I wish Yahoo! Stores had had it back when I still had a shop.
I had no idea $65/hr counted as the "working poor"! I'm only getting about $33 an hour, guess I should be starvin or somethun.
You forgot to make it usable: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/un comp/articleshow?msid=249648
Did you take it one step further and contact the companies doing business with your ex-employer, to let them know what was happening? Or did you at least get a fat check to ensure your silence?
I can't use Opera or Mozilla at work, but I can install the Google Toolbar, which also blocks pop-ups. What's great is with one click, I can allow pop-ups on a given site (like, say, my WebMail, so it still pops-up the notification that I have new spam to delete).
Right, 'cause when you lobby one, it's more like a lease than an outright purchase.
"Did you read the second sentence of my post?"
No, I didn't. I just quoted you without actually reading it.
Did you read the fourth or eighth sentances of my post?
So you're OK with walking a mile to get something to eat? Even cavemen were smart enough to keep half an elk laying around in the back of the cave in case they got the munchies after knocking their caveboots with their cavewomen.
On top of this, I can tell you've never served in the military. Anyone who has can tell you that living in spartan spaces, with a communal chow hall instead of the convenience of a fridge and microwave sucks ass.
Well, you can find sex robots at www.realdoll.com. Kinda. Not really.
"Now, Now! The ACLU is doing all it can to protect the Bill of rights."
Not all of it, they're not. The usually do a good job defending the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th amendments, generally ignore the 9th (except as it applies to abortion), usually forget about the 10th (states' rights? didn't we fight a war over that one?), and completely ignore the 2nd (when was the last time you saw the ACLU defend the rights of law abiding gun owners?). They also haven't filed any lawsuits under the 3rd, but then when was the last time some soldiers tried to bed down on your futon without your permission?
So while they do a mostly good job, they need to step up to the plate a little more on Mr. Madison's Amendment No. 2.
Personnally, I think God is more concerned with how we treat each other than if we have faith in him. To quote Mother Abigail from "The Stand" when someone told her he didn't believe in God: "That's alright, He believes in you." Osama bin Laden has lots of faith in God, but something tells me he won't be wandering streets of gold come Judgement Day.
That said, belief in a supreme being who weighs our actions can be a powerful motivator for living a good life (it can also be a tool to oppress people, unfortunately, but then so is pretty much anything else).
You're both obviously under the control of aliens. The Department of Homeland Security will hear about this!
"It is as hard to predict how pleasant your trip by car is going to be. Will somebody call you an ashole? Will you be involveded in an accident?"
Actually, here in LA, it's easy to predict both of those: Yes.
"We have come such a long way. This country got its founding to a great extent (not entirely) from the civilian illegal combatants that harrassed the resident British forces. It seems ingenuous [sic] to glorify them then turn around and condem [sic] others for the same tactic. But maybe your people were around here when mine were fighting the British."
Wow, do you have a skewed understanding of history (that, or what exactly comprises "illegal combatants"). Pretty much all of the colonial militias not only wore uniforms and were organized into a formal heirarchy, they also did not hide among the civilian populace. Even the ones who used guerilla tactics, or who didn't wear uniforms all the time, didn't hide among civilians.
Comparing our forefathers with the murderous thugs of the Taliban and al Queda does not strengthen your case, and it sullies the memory of *real* freedom fighters.
Don't forget the fourth category, illegal combatants. These are people who don't wear uniforms, try to mingle in with the civilian population, but strike out at other armies. They have considerably less legal standing than the other catagories, at least under US law (reference: US Supreme Court case ex parte Quirin ). These are the people being held at Guatanamo.
It's important that we *not* treat terrorists, spies, and other illegal combatants the same as we treat legal combatants. If we treated them the way you seem to think we should, it lowers the bar for civilized warfare (oximoron, I know). There has to be a reason for armies to wear uniforms and operate openly, otherwise things would quickly degenerate more than they have. Besides, if someone chooses to hide among the civilian population, putting them at more risk, then he should pay a higher price when he's caught.
And note that I said "US law". I realize international law, such as the Geneva Convention (to which the US is a signatory) doesn't have the same distinction. But, so far as I know, there's nothing stopping us from having this distinction. If there were, and we really were violating a treaty, I'm sure the Senate would've put a stop to it long ago. Since they're the ones who ratify treaties, it would be in their best interests to make sure the executive branch was playing by their rules. You can't tell me there isn't one Senator who wouldn't've raised a fuss (a certain one from Conneticut, now running for his Party's nomination for President, comes to mind).
OMFG, I can't believe a mainstream, reputable newsrag would allow one of their flunkies to throw around epithets all day long like that. "Linux crunchies"??? WTF, are we some kind of breakfast cereal, now?
I wish I had a subscription to Forbes, so I could cancel it.
Around the time my dad bought us a C-128, my brother and I started playing Star Frontiers, the sci-fi role playing game from TSR. I sat down and, in one weekend, wrote up character generators, default templates for several new races, even wrote a poker program so I could have my characters go into a casino and make extra money (the logic wasn't very good, I invariably ended up with about a trillion credits, which the GM never let me use). We had a 1541, so I saved it all to floppy and made copies for my friends so they could run it on their C-64s.
One of my buddies wrote up a program to let us draw out diagrams for our cars in Car Wars, though we still used pencil and paper to actually design them.
Oops, mistake in *my* math. Only multiplied by 60 once instead of twice, so I inadvertently wrote out the speed per minute, not hour. So it clocks in at 134 GB per hour, better than SDLT 320. And it's cheap enough that you can put 10 disks together in 1+0 (5 mirrors, striped together), and still come out ahead on budget.
Um, you're not quite up to speed on tape, are you?
Modern tape systems can easily hold anywhere from 110 GB up to 440 GB per cartridge. So one tape, which is far less likely to fail than this crappy IDE disk, will hold far more bits. Plus, the read times on tape are much better than a 5400 RPM IDE disk (for instance, SDLT 320 tapes can read/write 115 GB per hour, compare this to a paltry 4 GB per hour on this beast, according to the article).
The catch, of course, is that a SDLT320 drive costs about $10,000, and each cartridge costs around $100. So for the home user who doesn't want to have to take out a second mortgage just to store the entire Warner Music catalog, with space left over for the Library of Congress, this new disk makes sense.
Come on! They're robots! They're ninjas! All they need to do now is turn into fighter planes and it'd be like Saturday morning c. 1986 all over again.
"Of course the nobel committies are political. Some awards are given far too soon, and others are ignored for less achivements of "lesser" merit."
You mean like how Yasser Arafat got a Nobel Peace Prize, but Mahatma Ghandi didn't?
"So you want to complain about it? How about offering a valid solution?"
OK, here's one: it's called QoS on a switched network. Instead of saying "everyone gets 100Mb connectivity, more than enough to saturate our single T3, each", set the network to only allow 500kb per LAN drop. Simple solution, and solves the problem nicely without having to poke around inside students' computers.
At the same time, monitor bandwidth usage on a per port basis (gee, too bad there isn't a free multi-router traffic grapher out there somewhere). Any user that consistently pegs their bandwidth cap gets a stern talking to from the local network honchos.
"btw, can we use that as a noun yet? Like a gaggle of geese, a herd a cattle or a school of fish, can we have a Google of computers?"
Considering Google coopted a math term (googleplex, sometimes just called 'google'), which was taken from a cartoon characters (Barney Google, one of the original Snuffy Smith characters), I don't see why not.
FYI, a google is a 1 followed by 100 zeroes.
"If Revolutions does worse than that, I'll eat my own socks without ketchup."
Should that happen, I reserve the right to say "Gobble, gobble" just before you do.
"It seems to me that this is essentially an admission that Windoze as it comes from the box is not fit for use. Whatever the hell their EULA says, there has to be some implied fitness for use warranty on any product that people buy."
/. stopped me (the section is in all caps). Here's a link to the GPL, instead: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html.
Really? What about section 11 of the GPL (note specifically the fitness clause)?
I was going to paste that section, but
Personnally, I agree with you, and think that section of the GPL is bunk (and probably the section most likely to be tossed, should it ever be tested in court). But as it stands, software can be sold or given away without a warranty of any kind. Hopefully this suit against MS will change that.