the point of patents: to make sure good ideas get spread around and seed more good ideas
Is that why companies spend thousands on each patent; so the ideas can spread around and seed more good ideas? Sounds like an opportunity for a shareholder lawsuit.
Stop believing the 4 color PR brochures. The USA's founding fathers' intent is not the same as todays intellectual monopoly reality. Patents keep you and me from leveraging ideas.
Good luck reading up on existing patents to seed new ideas. US courts have created a catch 22 where you are advised not to read them: 1. You can be sued for patent infringement even if you did not infringe. This is done when the competition knows it has more money to spend in court than you do.
2. If you lose a patent infringement case, the punitive damages are several factors larger IF it can be shown that you read the existing patents. Your opinion of the existing patent has no bearing on this punishment.
3. US courts have established that only Patent Attorney's are authorized to form an legitimate opinion regarding probable patent infringement. (See #2 above.)
Is this what the founding fathers intended? This is what we have. "Invent" something useful and then patent it for kicks. Let us know how it goes. If a big company feels threatened by your product, they will take care of you. The patent system is their big stick, not yours.
Now kids are carrying $1500 laptops? Isn't this dangerous for the kids?
What about irresponsible kids... are the parents held liable for the replacement cost like they are for books? I can remember losing a schoolbook or two back in my school days. I've worked with people that have lost notebooks. Ouch!
This seems like a luxury some families can ill afford. I don't know how I feel about this trend yet.
A point lost in the minds of many who argue for patents is that very few ideas, if any, spring from the mind of one individual. In reality all high-tech ideas leverage the ideas of many who never get attribution. That's just a fact.
Do I argue for patents or against? If you believe what I just stated, which do you think?
Cisco is just one example getting a little more light than usual.
and regular smart people. That's how things are "invented." Lock the smartest person in the world in a cave from birth and you will get nothing useful. Give him ideas from other people to build on and you get products and innovations.
Let's remember that when we argue for the necessity of patents.
If you want a Scooter, why wait????
on
This is IT?
·
· Score: 2
Why is it for anyone except geeks that must have the latest toy? Today you can aleady buy electric scooters for under $300.
What's the difference?
About $2,700
About 12 months
About 70 pounds
Ohh yeah, all of today's electric scooters have one wheel in front, and one in the back. This one has them side-by-side.
Sharper image has one called "X2" available on their website at www.sharperimage.com.
QT may be great, but reality is that it is not as simple for a Windows user to use as WindowsMedia. We know why:
1. WindowsMedia player is part of Windows 2. QT requires a download. Not everyone has broadband. Not everyone is smart enough to install it. (Yes, just double click and reboot. Some moms cannot do this however.)
3. The GUI is cool but strange.
What can Apple do about this? I don't know. At this point it may be a battle lost.
If we can make wireless devices that actually have a _use_ (think wireless Newton), then maybe we're getting somewhere
See the Treo from Handspring (www.handspring.com). The wallstreet journal reviewed it last week and loved it.
Add high G3 bandwidth to it and presto -- awesome mix!
PS - Usable like a Newton? Who do you know that actually used that brick for anything on a regular basis? Usable like a palm device I can understand.
I could imagine a great attachment: A small two wheel wagon coupled with a universal joint to the Ginger thing. Power solution -> extra batteries integrated into the wagon.
I'm surprised they did not already talk about something like this because the grocery trip scenario is an obvious one.
Linus wrote[
Like somebody had to keep an eye on our evolution so that you had a chance
to be around?
Who's naive? ]
Linus seems pretty smart and reasonable. I find it disappointing that he so smugly suggests there is no God. Just because he cannot see the hand of God at work, he reasons it is not there. How arrogant is that?
Everyone knows that whenever you install Windows on a machine you are already gambling with your reliability. Putting it on slot machines is a natural!
The only known way to use gravity to generate any kind of power is the harness things as they fall. The classroom description for things that can fall is that they have "potential energy."
Hydro-electric is the only successful example I can think of. Here are the problems with trying to reduce our oil dependency by using this black hole:
1. It is 40,000 light-years away. 40,000 LIGHT YEARS AWAY. Me thinks even a fraction of 1 light year is, uhhh, too far.
2. What, you need another problem? Read #1.
If you need another reason, think about this one: A light year is the distance LIGHT travels in one year. Electricity through a wire travels SLOWER than that. So, okay somehow you rigg up a generator close enough to the black hole to greate electricity. It will run down your super long wire to your PC where you are browsing Slashdot in about 40,000 years.
Do all hackers notify CERT first? (How many quiet hackers already found this one?)
Once a company has a fix they owe their customers that fix. Anything less is a compromise of their customer's security and risks tarnishing their trust. Yes, getting a fix out first does matter.
Red Hat did the right thing. If your distro has not put out a fix yet, are they working fast enough? (You think there were no script kiddies out there before Red Hat "broke the news?")
And who is driving your browser? I may be a sh*thead (people that know me well know that is a fact, you just got a lucky guess), but I drive my own browser and point it where I want to go.
By the way, read my comment more carefully and think "math". (Perhaps you are a sh*thead too.)
There may be situations where moderation of sites makes sense. Slashdotters might be a good example. Folks that visit this site probably peruse technology pages frequently. (Sometimes links are provided on Slashdot messages.) The slashdot user opinion of tech pages might be worth something. If a site gets good scores from users that have "high" karma, maybe there is something better about those sites? Or maybe there is at least a curios thing about those sites that other users might like too?
I'm not interested in taking the time to see how other people rated other sites
If Google stored a cookie with your ID and the visited page was smart enough to include a special "Google Moderate" link, you could easily and quickly rate a site when you visit it. If it is easy, you might do it.
I would welcome that ranking option as something that I could turn on or off on Google when I do a search.
I checked the date, but today is not April 1st. How is it possible that there are two postings on Slashdot today where California, the state with blackout summers and crazy laws, has issued court rulings that make sense! This is crazy. The world must be ending.
If this shows a trend, I may have to move out that way.
The Slashdot ranking process is a work in progress but seems to be working somewhat. Google could apply a similar "karma" system for registered users and perhaps have "metamoderation" too. Can it be abused? Sure. So what? As a small influence on ranking, it may be a good thing.
Certainly the current Google ranking system (counts number of links) should always be of greater significance in any applied approach.
This may just be a cover story, and like all good cover stories has a glint of truth to make a cursory check seem to support it. The point you make is too obvious and is enough reason to rule out this approach entirely.
Instead, what I'm sure they are doing is providing the FBI with patch code that they can install on the machines by physically running the code from a boot disk. This is something the FBI can do once they have a search warrant to enter the premises (while the owner is unaware.)
Can someone write software to check for this patched version of McCaffe or Norton? Of course. Will this catch some people? Of course. Are we spoiling this plan for the FBI by talking about it? Of course not. The people that they will catch with this modified software are the same people that don't understand their machines well enough to check for the modification.
I heard about an Alaire presentation to a computer group back in the early 70's that consisted enirely of music generated by placing an AM radio next to the Alaire computer. Maybe someone here knows more about that event. I know it has been written about before.
The more things change, the more they seem to stay the same.
PDA's are not about looking good. They are about having the info you need when you need it. Like having a watch on your wrist gives you the time when you want it without hassle.
Like I said, my Handspring is already almost too big. I'm sure in a few years I'll look at it and wonder how I ever put up up with it.
If someone patents your DNA sequence, and you are a surogate mother, do you have to pay royalties on the child? (Since you are giving birth for profit.)
Slashdot Mirror
the point of patents: to make sure good ideas get spread around and seed more good ideas
Is that why companies spend thousands on each patent; so the ideas can spread around and seed more good ideas? Sounds like an opportunity for a shareholder lawsuit.
Stop believing the 4 color PR brochures. The USA's founding fathers' intent is not the same as todays intellectual monopoly reality. Patents keep you and me from leveraging ideas.
Good luck reading up on existing patents to seed new ideas. US courts have created a catch 22 where you are advised not to read them:
1. You can be sued for patent infringement even if you did not infringe. This is done when the competition knows it has more money to spend in court than you do.
2. If you lose a patent infringement case, the punitive damages are several factors larger IF it can be shown that you read the existing patents. Your opinion of the existing patent has no bearing on this punishment.
3. US courts have established that only Patent Attorney's are authorized to form an legitimate opinion regarding probable patent infringement. (See #2 above.)
Is this what the founding fathers intended? This is what we have. "Invent" something useful and then patent it for kicks. Let us know how it goes. If a big company feels threatened by your product, they will take care of you. The patent system is their big stick, not yours.
How many old-fashioned dead-tree school books cost $400? Can you see a ghetto kid coming back home after breaking his laptop?
I don't see how this can work for everybody. Seems like another gimmick-perk for the suburbs.
Now kids are carrying $1500 laptops? Isn't this dangerous for the kids?
... are the parents held liable for the replacement cost like they are for books? I can remember losing a schoolbook or two back in my school days. I've worked with people that have lost notebooks. Ouch!
What about irresponsible kids
This seems like a luxury some families can ill afford. I don't know how I feel about this trend yet.
A point lost in the minds of many who argue for patents is that very few ideas, if any, spring from the mind of one individual. In reality all high-tech ideas leverage the ideas of many who never get attribution. That's just a fact.
Do I argue for patents or against? If you believe what I just stated, which do you think?
Cisco is just one example getting a little more light than usual.
and regular smart people. That's how things are "invented." Lock the smartest person in the world in a cave from birth and you will get nothing useful. Give him ideas from other people to build on and you get products and innovations.
Let's remember that when we argue for the necessity of patents.
What's the difference?
About $2,700
About 12 months
About 70 pounds
Ohh yeah, all of today's electric scooters have one wheel in front, and one in the back. This one has them side-by-side.
Sharper image has one called "X2" available on their website at www.sharperimage.com.
It required an expensive video editing system, that included a $10,000 professional video card called a HyperCard
Wasn't hypercard the popular freebie utility included with Macs back in the late 80's? Was the name later reused for a hardware device?
QT may be great, but reality is that it is not as simple for a Windows user to use as WindowsMedia. We know why:
1. WindowsMedia player is part of Windows
2. QT requires a download. Not everyone has broadband. Not everyone is smart enough to install it. (Yes, just double click and reboot. Some moms cannot do this however.)
3. The GUI is cool but strange.
What can Apple do about this? I don't know. At this point it may be a battle lost.
If we can make wireless devices that actually have a _use_ (think wireless Newton), then maybe we're getting somewhere
See the Treo from Handspring (www.handspring.com). The wallstreet journal reviewed it last week and loved it.
Add high G3 bandwidth to it and presto -- awesome mix! PS - Usable like a Newton? Who do you know that actually used that brick for anything on a regular basis? Usable like a palm device I can understand.
I could imagine a great attachment: A small two wheel wagon coupled with a universal joint to the Ginger thing. Power solution -> extra batteries integrated into the wagon.
I'm surprised they did not already talk about something like this because the grocery trip scenario is an obvious one.
You Write: My ethics ascribe nothing special to the state of being human
Some people eat cows, pigs, chickens, and other animals. I'm one of those people. How many human genes in a pig before it becomes cannibalism?
Is this a question of taste?
Linus wrote[
Like somebody had to keep an eye on our evolution so that you had a chance
to be around?
Who's naive?
]
Linus seems pretty smart and reasonable. I find it disappointing that he so smugly suggests there is no God. Just because he cannot see the hand of God at work, he reasons it is not there. How arrogant is that?
Everyone knows that whenever you install Windows on a machine you are already gambling with your reliability. Putting it on slot machines is a natural!
The only known way to use gravity to generate any kind of power is the harness things as they fall. The classroom description for things that can fall is that they have "potential energy."
Hydro-electric is the only successful example I can think of. Here are the problems with trying to reduce our oil dependency by using this black hole:
1. It is 40,000 light-years away. 40,000 LIGHT YEARS AWAY. Me thinks even a fraction of 1 light year is, uhhh, too far.
2. What, you need another problem? Read #1.
If you need another reason, think about this one: A light year is the distance LIGHT travels in one year. Electricity through a wire travels SLOWER than that. So, okay somehow you rigg up a generator close enough to the black hole to greate electricity. It will run down your super long wire to your PC where you are browsing Slashdot in about 40,000 years.
Do all hackers notify CERT first? (How many quiet hackers already found this one?)
Once a company has a fix they owe their customers that fix. Anything less is a compromise of their customer's security and risks tarnishing their trust. Yes, getting a fix out first does matter.
Red Hat did the right thing. If your distro has not put out a fix yet, are they working fast enough? (You think there were no script kiddies out there before Red Hat "broke the news?")
God, I f*cking hate slashdot
And who is driving your browser? I may be a sh*thead (people that know me well know that is a fact, you just got a lucky guess), but I drive my own browser and point it where I want to go.
By the way, read my comment more carefully and think "math". (Perhaps you are a sh*thead too.)
There may be situations where moderation of sites makes sense. Slashdotters might be a good example. Folks that visit this site probably peruse technology pages frequently. (Sometimes links are provided on Slashdot messages.) The slashdot user opinion of tech pages might be worth something. If a site gets good scores from users that have "high" karma, maybe there is something better about those sites? Or maybe there is at least a curios thing about those sites that other users might like too?
I'm not interested in taking the time to see how other people rated other sites
If Google stored a cookie with your ID and the visited page was smart enough to include a special "Google Moderate" link, you could easily and quickly rate a site when you visit it. If it is easy, you might do it.
I would welcome that ranking option as something that I could turn on or off on Google when I do a search.
You might be right. The score for your post is not negative yet.
I checked the date, but today is not April 1st. How is it possible that there are two postings on Slashdot today where California, the state with blackout summers and crazy laws, has issued court rulings that make sense! This is crazy. The world must be ending.
If this shows a trend, I may have to move out that way.
The Slashdot ranking process is a work in progress but seems to be working somewhat. Google could apply a similar "karma" system for registered users and perhaps have "metamoderation" too. Can it be abused? Sure. So what? As a small influence on ranking, it may be a good thing.
Certainly the current Google ranking system (counts number of links) should always be of greater significance in any applied approach.
This may just be a cover story, and like all good cover stories has a glint of truth to make a cursory check seem to support it. The point you make is too obvious and is enough reason to rule out this approach entirely.
Instead, what I'm sure they are doing is providing the FBI with patch code that they can install on the machines by physically running the code from a boot disk. This is something the FBI can do once they have a search warrant to enter the premises (while the owner is unaware.)
Can someone write software to check for this patched version of McCaffe or Norton? Of course. Will this catch some people? Of course. Are we spoiling this plan for the FBI by talking about it? Of course not. The people that they will catch with this modified software are the same people that don't understand their machines well enough to check for the modification.
I heard about an Alaire presentation to a computer group back in the early 70's that consisted enirely of music generated by placing an AM radio next to the Alaire computer. Maybe someone here knows more about that event. I know it has been written about before.
The more things change, the more they seem to stay the same.
And a pocket protector is stylish?
PDA's are not about looking good. They are about having the info you need when you need it. Like having a watch on your wrist gives you the time when you want it without hassle.
Like I said, my Handspring is already almost too big. I'm sure in a few years I'll look at it and wonder how I ever put up up with it.
If someone patents your DNA sequence, and you are a surogate mother, do you have to pay royalties on the child? (Since you are giving birth for profit.)
No, this is much bigger in size and weight. Ohh, and price.