I believe this patent could be defeated in court. If you remove "handheld" from the patent, then UAE would constitue prior art. So in fact, all Nintendo have done is taken a process already well-known when they filed, added "handheld" to it, and claimed it as their own. I do not believe that this is sufficient to claim that they have invented something new and non-obvious to somebody schooled in the relevant field, which is the litmus-test for patents. The only problem then is to find somebody with deep enough pockets to challenge Nintendo in court...
By your own measure, then, the unemployment rate of this class of workers is 0.9% outside the upper bound of good. You may suggest that 0.9% is a small number, but don't forget that it's more than a 25% diversion from the median of the acceptable 3-4%. That *is* serious, even by the proper computation. By yours, it's worse--a 43% deviation! So, when you're making a point, try to be consistent with your own arguments.
When critiqueing my argument and my point, please make sure to refer to the right argument and the right point. When I was talking about the 5.8% unployment rate (4.9% by your calculation), my point was not that this was (not) a serious unemployment rate, but rather that this rate was comparable to the national rate. Hence my conclusion that H1B workers did not make the computer and mathematical sector stand out unemployment-wise.
Fourth, these guys are not immigrants as you suggest
You are correct. I should have used the correct term ("non-immigrants").
According to the Immigration Bureau again, these guys in computer-related occupations in FY 2002 made a median income of $60,000. According to your BLS source, the mean annual wage for this sector in general was $61,630 in 2002. So, they're here becuase the IT industry can get them cheaper than citizens. Even for those of us *with* jobs, that pressure depresses our wage. So, try to have a handle on the basic facts when you're making a point.
You are conveniently forgetting that the cost of getting and keeping H1B workers runs in the many thousands of dollars (H1B fees for starters, and most if not all companies will start green card procedures as well. And that's just the fees to pay to the government, let's not even mention the lawyer-fees), so the cost to the company is likely at least the same, but probably higher. Your conclusion that these non-immigrants are here because they are cheaper therefore does not follow from the facts you presented. "handle on the basic facts" indeed...
The one missing datapoint that you've omitted is how many total workers there are in that category. That number is 2,772,620. From this we can calculate that the unemployment rate in this category was almost 5.8%, which is the same as the average national unemployment level in that year. We can conclude that the presence of H1B workers did not make the computer and mathematical sector stand out unemployment-wise.
But let's not stop there. In any society, there is going to be *some* unemployment. An unemployment level of 3-4% is generally considered very good. 3% of 2,772,620 is 83,179, meaning that even if 83,179 people in the "computer and mathematical" category were out of a job, this would still be a very healthy situation. Reducing the number of H1B immigrants by 76821 could potentially achieve that, and would still leave 293,669 immigrants.
"plain paper" != "office paper". I've handled plenty of US currency, and found a HUGE variety in the quality of bills. Some look and feel crisp and new, others look like they've gone through thousands of hands, and have ragged edges and a silky feel to them. Given that huge variety, it should be easy to fake something convincingly. Start with some heavier-weight paper (still "plain", readily available at most stores), soak it in water and leave it to dry in the sun (to give it a crispier feel and make it turn off-white), and it already comes pretty close in look and feel to (some) US currency.
... is to make the notes so fancy that a color printer cannot reproduce them in any way that would fool anyone. The problem is that US paper currency looks and feels like something printed on plain paper, and is therefore easy to fake. The US could learn something from the Europeans here (take a look at Euro-notes, or pre-Euro Dutch notes for example).
This is because the router times out the target system's ARP entry
So the attacker cannot tell the difference between a system that doesn't send reject-packets, and a system that has been turned off within the last few minutes or so. If it makes the script-kiddie move on to the next victim, I'm all for it.
The whole point behind port knocking is the wrong impression that "open" ports are more insecure than "closed" ports. This is totally bogus.
No it isn't. A closed port does not accept any data, therefore you cannot attack the application "behind it". A port that is open is only as secure as the application listening on that port, which AT BEST is as secure as a closed port, assuming the listening service is absolutely perfect, and has no flaws whatsoever.
There does seem to be some confusion as to what it means for a port to be "closed", judging from most of the posts I've seen so far. You can close a port, but send "connection denied" replies to anyone trying to connect. This makes the port itself safe, but tells the attacker that there is in fact a machine there on the network (which could be a reason for an attacker to continue to probe and/or attack you in other ways). You can also close the port by not responding to anything directed at it at all. If *all* of your ports are like this, an attacker won't even know if your machine is turned on or off, or if there's even a machine there at all. In a way, you've become invisible. Ideally, that's what you want. Port knocking is simply a way to allow your machine to be invisible while still being able to initiate connections to it from arbitrary IPs.
You know, until know I didn't really care if software was open-source or not, as long as it did the job. But now that commercial vendors are including bits of government-provided code that they don't even know the exact function of, I'm starting to think that maybe I should be using more open-source applications.
She was not on track to earn $115M/year. The mentioned $155M was the combined compensation of Carly Fiorina and Compaq CEO Michael Capellas. The article you linked to does not even mention whether this was an annual thing or not. It could also have been a one-time bonus upon succesful completion of the merger.
Finally the revisionist conspiracy has been exposed! Their shameless attempts at hiding the existence of BoilerPlate will no longer work. At last the world can see BoilerPlate posing with Pancho Villa, instead of only seeing the revisionist version of the picture, where BoilerPlate has been replaced by some nameless revolutionary. Kinda makes one wonder if those US soldiers in Iraq aren't actually BoilerPlate Mark 10's.
Given that the US is already excluding foreign nations from lucrative rebuilding contracts in Iraq, I would expect the Bush Administration to frown upon this possible move to open source, and start pushing Microsoft and friends instead.
So, someone tell me... does that mean the kernel is SMP?
No. One core runs the phone-stack, the other core runs the OS. It's pretty much like having two separate devices (usually linked via a serial connection) in a single enclosure.
The article mentions no causal relation between piracy and sales. It merely mentions that sales are up, and piracy is too. Whoever concluded that piracy caused a boost in sales (this 'vik' person that submitted the story, perhaps), is obviously doing so in an effort to justify their activities ("see? what I'm doing is actually GOOD for sales!").
It's pretty sad when Windows-users feel they have to start defending themselves by pointing out that other operating systems are vulnerable too. The last paragraph pretty much says all in that regard...
You read that right, it's 'for sale' at the *regular* price
You're confusing "for sale" with "on sale". That being said, Apple-stuff is rarely on sale. Fry's had some deals the day after thanksgiving though. MacOS X Panther for $99.95 for example. I believe they also had the low-end iPod for $250 or so.
"violating the constitution" vs "unconstitutional"
on
SCOrched Earth
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
SCO-Darl's letter literally says "SCO asserts that the GPL, under which Linux is distributed, violates the
United States Constitution", but then Lessig says "Finally, notice what McBride doesn't say. He does not say that the GPL is unconstitutional." So what's the difference? Is there some subtle legal distinction between "violates the constitution" and "is unconstitutional"?
The article makes the same mistake that most articles of this kind make: it assumes that everyone who uses linux gets the sourcecode, that everyone who gets the sourcecode looks at the sourcecode, and that everybody who looks at the sourcecode contributes to it. This leads to the conclusion that Linus has an army of millions at his disposal, which is simply not true.
If my goal is to have a video-player for which I can rent the most videos, then VHS is better. If my goal is best picture quality, it is not. Similarly, if I want my operating system to be as compatible as possible with what most other people are using, or if I want the PC operating system for which the most 3D games are available, then Windows is a better choice than linux.
"better" can *only* be considered in context (e.g. something is better AT something). Simply saying "free software is better" is lacking that context, and is therefore a meaningless statement.
I use Free software because it's better; they just didn't ask.
"better" is a subjective term. It might be better for you because you subscribe to the GNU philosophy, or you might think it's better because less linux-viruses exist than Windows-viruses. Regardless of why *you* think it is better, the fact of the matter is that "the market" shows that for the vast majority of people, Windows is better. The *reasons* for that (it came helpfully preinstalled on the new computer, better games, more business software, whatever) are something you can debate endlessly. Making a blanket "free software is better" statement, however, is meaningless without saying at WHAT it is better.
Slashdot Mirror
I believe this patent could be defeated in court. If you remove "handheld" from the patent, then UAE would constitue prior art. So in fact, all Nintendo have done is taken a process already well-known when they filed, added "handheld" to it, and claimed it as their own. I do not believe that this is sufficient to claim that they have invented something new and non-obvious to somebody schooled in the relevant field, which is the litmus-test for patents. The only problem then is to find somebody with deep enough pockets to challenge Nintendo in court...
When critiqueing my argument and my point, please make sure to refer to the right argument and the right point. When I was talking about the 5.8% unployment rate (4.9% by your calculation), my point was not that this was (not) a serious unemployment rate, but rather that this rate was comparable to the national rate. Hence my conclusion that H1B workers did not make the computer and mathematical sector stand out unemployment-wise.
Fourth, these guys are not immigrants as you suggest
You are correct. I should have used the correct term ("non-immigrants").
According to the Immigration Bureau again, these guys in computer-related occupations in FY 2002 made a median income of $60,000. According to your BLS source, the mean annual wage for this sector in general was $61,630 in 2002. So, they're here becuase the IT industry can get them cheaper than citizens. Even for those of us *with* jobs, that pressure depresses our wage. So, try to have a handle on the basic facts when you're making a point.
You are conveniently forgetting that the cost of getting and keeping H1B workers runs in the many thousands of dollars (H1B fees for starters, and most if not all companies will start green card procedures as well. And that's just the fees to pay to the government, let's not even mention the lawyer-fees), so the cost to the company is likely at least the same, but probably higher. Your conclusion that these non-immigrants are here because they are cheaper therefore does not follow from the facts you presented. "handle on the basic facts" indeed...
I should have your job
Well, you could start with *a* job...
But let's not stop there. In any society, there is going to be *some* unemployment. An unemployment level of 3-4% is generally considered very good. 3% of 2,772,620 is 83,179, meaning that even if 83,179 people in the "computer and mathematical" category were out of a job, this would still be a very healthy situation. Reducing the number of H1B immigrants by 76821 could potentially achieve that, and would still leave 293,669 immigrants.
"plain paper" != "office paper". I've handled plenty of US currency, and found a HUGE variety in the quality of bills. Some look and feel crisp and new, others look like they've gone through thousands of hands, and have ragged edges and a silky feel to them. Given that huge variety, it should be easy to fake something convincingly. Start with some heavier-weight paper (still "plain", readily available at most stores), soak it in water and leave it to dry in the sun (to give it a crispier feel and make it turn off-white), and it already comes pretty close in look and feel to (some) US currency.
... is to make the notes so fancy that a color printer cannot reproduce them in any way that would fool anyone. The problem is that US paper currency looks and feels like something printed on plain paper, and is therefore easy to fake. The US could learn something from the Europeans here (take a look at Euro-notes, or pre-Euro Dutch notes for example).
So the attacker cannot tell the difference between a system that doesn't send reject-packets, and a system that has been turned off within the last few minutes or so. If it makes the script-kiddie move on to the next victim, I'm all for it.
No it isn't. A closed port does not accept any data, therefore you cannot attack the application "behind it". A port that is open is only as secure as the application listening on that port, which AT BEST is as secure as a closed port, assuming the listening service is absolutely perfect, and has no flaws whatsoever.
There does seem to be some confusion as to what it means for a port to be "closed", judging from most of the posts I've seen so far. You can close a port, but send "connection denied" replies to anyone trying to connect. This makes the port itself safe, but tells the attacker that there is in fact a machine there on the network (which could be a reason for an attacker to continue to probe and/or attack you in other ways). You can also close the port by not responding to anything directed at it at all. If *all* of your ports are like this, an attacker won't even know if your machine is turned on or off, or if there's even a machine there at all. In a way, you've become invisible. Ideally, that's what you want. Port knocking is simply a way to allow your machine to be invisible while still being able to initiate connections to it from arbitrary IPs.
It sure is.
Seeing as how this patent was filed in 1999, there should be an abundance of prior art.
You know, until know I didn't really care if software was open-source or not, as long as it did the job. But now that commercial vendors are including bits of government-provided code that they don't even know the exact function of, I'm starting to think that maybe I should be using more open-source applications.
She was not on track to earn $115M/year. The mentioned $155M was the combined compensation of Carly Fiorina and Compaq CEO Michael Capellas. The article you linked to does not even mention whether this was an annual thing or not. It could also have been a one-time bonus upon succesful completion of the merger.
Finally the revisionist conspiracy has been exposed! Their shameless attempts at hiding the existence of BoilerPlate will no longer work. At last the world can see BoilerPlate posing with Pancho Villa, instead of only seeing the revisionist version of the picture, where BoilerPlate has been replaced by some nameless revolutionary. Kinda makes one wonder if those US soldiers in Iraq aren't actually BoilerPlate Mark 10's.
And a $500 Pentium 4 machine will run rings around it...
Given that the US is already excluding foreign nations from lucrative rebuilding contracts in Iraq, I would expect the Bush Administration to frown upon this possible move to open source, and start pushing Microsoft and friends instead.
No. One core runs the phone-stack, the other core runs the OS. It's pretty much like having two separate devices (usually linked via a serial connection) in a single enclosure.
In a perfect world, they would thus turn against that leadership In a perfect world, there would have been no NEED to go to war, ever.
So are other countries. When will the U.S. invade and liberate Israel?
The article mentions no causal relation between piracy and sales. It merely mentions that sales are up, and piracy is too. Whoever concluded that piracy caused a boost in sales (this 'vik' person that submitted the story, perhaps), is obviously doing so in an effort to justify their activities ("see? what I'm doing is actually GOOD for sales!").
Did you consider that maybe all that "Apple reseller" wanted to do was to sell you an Apple?
It's pretty sad when Windows-users feel they have to start defending themselves by pointing out that other operating systems are vulnerable too. The last paragraph pretty much says all in that regard...
You're confusing "for sale" with "on sale". That being said, Apple-stuff is rarely on sale. Fry's had some deals the day after thanksgiving though. MacOS X Panther for $99.95 for example. I believe they also had the low-end iPod for $250 or so.
SCO-Darl's letter literally says "SCO asserts that the GPL, under which Linux is distributed, violates the United States Constitution", but then Lessig says "Finally, notice what McBride doesn't say. He does not say that the GPL is unconstitutional." So what's the difference? Is there some subtle legal distinction between "violates the constitution" and "is unconstitutional"?
The article makes the same mistake that most articles of this kind make: it assumes that everyone who uses linux gets the sourcecode, that everyone who gets the sourcecode looks at the sourcecode, and that everybody who looks at the sourcecode contributes to it. This leads to the conclusion that Linus has an army of millions at his disposal, which is simply not true.
If my goal is to have a video-player for which I can rent the most videos, then VHS is better. If my goal is best picture quality, it is not. Similarly, if I want my operating system to be as compatible as possible with what most other people are using, or if I want the PC operating system for which the most 3D games are available, then Windows is a better choice than linux.
"better" can *only* be considered in context (e.g. something is better AT something). Simply saying "free software is better" is lacking that context, and is therefore a meaningless statement.
"better" is a subjective term. It might be better for you because you subscribe to the GNU philosophy, or you might think it's better because less linux-viruses exist than Windows-viruses. Regardless of why *you* think it is better, the fact of the matter is that "the market" shows that for the vast majority of people, Windows is better. The *reasons* for that (it came helpfully preinstalled on the new computer, better games, more business software, whatever) are something you can debate endlessly. Making a blanket "free software is better" statement, however, is meaningless without saying at WHAT it is better.