far, far worse for the "inventor" than issued later after the application has been strengthened (and the opposite is true for humankind, which should make the limp-wristed hippy socialists happy.))
Oh SNAP! A jibe at the "hippy socialists" who belive that issuing shitty patents is bad for everyone! Mod parent up +10 LOLOLOLOL!!1!?!oneeleven
I suppose you're going to pay my legal fees if I get sued over a "flawed patent"? If you're going to make such grandiose statements, you should either "put up or shut up" as we limp-wristed socialists say. Maybe you'll pay Apple's lawyer's salaries out of your own pocket for the time they take defending against this patent when they could be out smacking down websites about their products?
but THIS is not indicative of THAT problem.
If issuing patents that are blatantly invalid either due to invalid subject matter (in this case) or due to consisting entirely of pre-existing technology (in the winamp/Rio... err... ACC "music jukebox" patent) is "not THAT problem" then I want to know what "THAT" problem is.
Considering that the Rio performs more than half the claims in that patent, yes, it does.
The remainder of the claims could be performed on any PC with a cdrom drive and winamp before 2000 as well, leaving a patent good for a voice-controlled media player with the ability to record voice and attach those voice files to tracks and to rip DVD-Audio, and which has separate physical gain controls for left and right channels, as well as a physical gain control for line in.
Claim 1 says protecting publically available software from unauthorized use, using a successful identity verification and where such identity information is usable in an "electronic commerce ooperation" and people can download the software and be unable to run it if they don't provide a valid identity.
I don't know, that sounds like the average mainframe situation where you can ftp via anonymous ftp and download whatever executables you feel like, or you can telnet in, login with a userid, run a job, and be billed per CPU-Hour to your userid.
It doesn't help that the person who wrote this can't even speak english as any of their languages.
They claim
A way to keep unauthorized users from using software by: 1) checking to see if it knows the user ("existing identity information") 2) Only allowing access if the user is known, "wherein" 3) this identity information can "enable e-commerce" (which I assume to mean the userid is tied to a credit card, based on following claims). 4) That last line is total gibberish, but I think (and I'm not a lawyer and I don't speak gibberish) that it means that you can download the software WITHOUT identity information, but then you will be unable to operate it.
If I were apple, I would contend that most of this patent does not apply since (aside from the fact that MUSIC is not software) the itunes music files are not publically available and cannot be downloaded at all without first identifying yourself to itunes.
Later claims (starting at 6) discuss individually distributed "software" which I take to mean me giving you a DRM'd copy of something I bought, however each of these claims specifically mentions e-commerce operations which I understand to mean some way of allowing you to buy access to the file I gave you, which you cannot (you have to buy and download a whole new file directly from itms)
The hilarious part is that if this company goes around charging everyone 12%, they'll probably single-handedly kill DRM unless they're in the pocket of some other player in the music sales arena, who will be benefitting from their patent royalty-free.
Having never played the game and only listening to other people complain about the auction house in WoW, I'd have to say I have reservations that little Bobby will learn anything about real world economics from the game.
However, even if little Bobby did learn economics from a video game, there is a vast gap between intellectual knowledge and physical knowledge. Claiming that playing GTA at 8 years of age would make Bobby physically capable of drawing a bead, firing, and hitting three police officers in rapid succession then stealing (hotwiring?) and escaping in a police car makes as much sense as claiming that playing WoW at 8 years of age would make Bobby capable of picking up a Greatsword and chopping through a reasonable-sized tree in a single blow.
in that case if your girlfriend (I know, wrong web site to make such an assumption)
Damn straight. But thats my point. Without a need for tampons, no number of tampon commercials will convince me to buy some. Just like no number of violent games will convince me to flip out and kill people since I don't have a need to kill people.
Aside from the fact that it was obviously written by a lawyer who knew more legalese than english:
determining if identity information, is existing in a processing apparatus
The first claims specifically describes most software license servers, at least as long as they can check the identity of the user running the software and grant or deny the right to use that software. This was filed in 1998, but I know that the university I went to used license servers before that time, however they may or may not have done anything beyond counting the number of users.
The remainder of the claims discuss being able to accept payments, which I suspect was not a feature of license servers at the time (most of which were used for corporations or universities or other large bodies that already paid for their software)
I take that alllll back. ANY mainframe user would have done all of the above, PLUS been billed for CPU time. The only thing new in this patent is the automatic credit card billing feature, and I bet you can find a shareware sales site out there that issues usernames and passwords, and generates keys that specifically only work with your username in your application, and that can process your credit card. (I know for a fact that winrar registration does this now, but back in 97 I was too busy ignoring the "buy now!" dialogs in my apps to see how their license key/serial number schemes worked)
Too bad Apple will probably pay these people to go away instead of getting these patents struck down. When stupid patents like these are issued, it does nothing but devalue all the real work done out there by real inventors who created these things (like the DVD-Audio section of the prior patent)
From AAD's patent here Claim 1 (the base for ALL the other claims in the patent) reads:
: A music jukebox configured for storing a music library therein, said music jukebox comprising: a housing; an audio data receiver arranged to receive audio data from outside the housing; audio output structure located at least partially within the housing for outputting audio signals; data storage memory in the housing for storing audio data received from outside the housing through the audio data receiver, said music jukebox including a user interface comprising a display device located at least partially within the housing, said display device providing a display which is viewable from outside the housing, and a plurality of manually operable function controllers on the housing, said music jukebox configured such that a music library of sound tracks is storable in digital form in the data storage memory as a result of audio data being received from outside the housing through the audio data receiver, said music jukebox configured such that said music library is organizable into a master song list and at least one group of sound tracks wherein each group comprises at least one sound track selected from the master song list, wherein said music jukebox is configured such that indicia of said master song list and indicia of at least one group of sound tracks are displayable on said display, wherein said music jukebox is configured such that said plurality of manually operable function controllers is useable to select a group of sound tracks stored in the data storage memory and operate the music jukebox such that said music jukebox outputs audio signals through said audio output structure.
Now, the thing to remember is that winamp has been around since sometime before 1999, ie more than a year before this patent was filed.
The only SLIGHTLY new thing here would be the "select a group of soundtracks" which sounds like "album shuffle" to me. The rest? Not a single thing MiniDisc didn't do in 1991. It's pretty clear that its not itunes thats infringing, because the only thing it does that napster and/or winamp didn't was download tracks from a main server and take your money.
Lets look at the other claims here: 2) plays a CD (how many years have we had cd players?) 3) edit an audio track 4) seems to mean that even if you have a cd in the drive you can play tracks from memory. Just like winamp. 5) edit an audio track using a "manually operable function controller"... are they calling volume adjustment "editing"? 6) "at least one sound track in the data storage memory is organizable into at least one group of sound tracks." Wow, a playlist editor? 7) "one manually operable function controller" for organizing sound tracks. When I use a mouse to rearrange songs in my winamp playlist using a "manually operable function controller"? 8) Peak level indicator (like winamp). 9) "such that names are assignable to at least one sound track in the data storage memory." OH MY GOD! THEY INVENTED THE ALBUM FIELD OF THE ID3 TAG! BOW TO THEIR INTELLIGENCE! Or you could just mean saving your playlist to a file and giving it a name. Winamp, and this claim is so oldschool its playschool. 10) "manually operable function controller" for assigning names to your winamp playlists. Like a keyboard! 11) Names assignable to at least one group of soundtracks. Could be the directory I store all my playlists in. 12) the obligatory device for naming groups of soundtracks 13) Uses a harddrive@!!%@2!@ wow, thats original! 14) Uses a line-in jack. Just like MD players right after Sony discovered that nobody cared about the optical inputs 15) Line Out Jack. Doesn't de
Thanks! I had seen a review of it a long time ago, but didn't realize it was available as a PDF. Filesystems have always been something of a side interest to me.
The CEO answers to the owners of the company. If the owners disapprove of who the company's money is being donated to, they can fire the CEO.
Before or after the money's gone?
And would you approve of a corporation consisting of 100 stockholders to get a 101st vote in the next presidential election? If so would you base it on the majority of stockholders or the majority of voting shares? And what precinct would the corporation vote in and who would cast the ballot?
Yeah kind of like how they had to step in on the private sector with that VHS vs betamax thing
Not even remotely the same thing. Using betamax didn't cause anyone's heart monitors to fail or interfere with any plane guidance towers. Given that its proven that companies don't give a shit about what happens to everyone else, without regulation they would build cheap unshielded devices that would be capable of pumping out massive amounts of interference.
There's a reason why the US Army uses video simulations, like Full Spectrum Warrior for example, to train its troops: it works.
I'll believe it works when I see the Army outfitting its troops with mouse-controlled machine guns that have zero kickback at all and tanks whose controls consist of "W A S D" buttons.
Until then I'll remain fully convinced that the reason the Army uses video games is because someone paid them to use video games, potentially as a marketing ploy, if not just good ol' nepotism.
As for Jack Thompson and anyone else who believes that games make people kill, keep in mind that in 2003 there were 0.1 murders per thousand people in this country, and with a population of almost 300M people at the time, that makes about 30K murder victims. With nearly 20 million copies of the latest GTA sold (according to Mr. Thompson's answers to the questions), that means that not a single person more than 0.15% of the GTA gaming population has killed someone (assuming that the vast majority of the gamers who bought the latest game also bought earlier GTA games). Considerably fewer than that when you consider the number of people who have killed more than one victim. And even fewer than that when you consider the number of people who kill yet have never even played a video game, much less GTA.
You mean like the tampon commercials that make me immediately rush out and buy a box, just in time to get back and see the car commercial? These days I never seem to get to watch any TV shows, and I'm always so in debt!</sarcasm>
Even without an instant cause and effect, the only people who buy shit they'll never use are those who already have mental problems and who stay up til 4 in the morning, telephone in hand, buying all these things that they saw on TV. Years of advertisements will not wear down my resistance to buying a box of tampons (though marriage probably will).
where you play the Germans exterminating jews in WWII?
Aside from the argument of whether that would be any fun, consider the somewhat recent WWII game where you play the Americans, killing Japanese soldiers. It was released in Japan, and met considerable success considering that they still played as Americans killing Japanese soldiers.
I suspect that the difference depends on how easily offended someone is, not how you offend them.
all the repetitive common sense answers stacked up next to the extremist answers...what we already all feel on the issue, a massive disconnect
Yet this could be the intention too: On the left are the consistent views of a majority of Americans, on the right are the views of a few extremists who want to sue game developers. Note the massive disconnect. Clearly the lawsuit happy extremists are out of touch with reality and need a time out.
If you want to see what filesystems are like when you add database features, look up some BeFS documentation from BeOS. There's a (sadly apparently now out of print) textbook on building filesystems using BeFS as a guide. While it's not really a database (it allows you define arbitrary indexes and allows searching on those indexes, but lacks most other features a database user would be familiar with) using it gives you a pretty good idea of how one that really was a database (with central data storage, relational algebra and set operations, etc.) would work.
People talk about games as "trainers" and "murder simulators" but nobody talks about the fact that the interface with the game has no analog in the real world.
Show me a +mouselook chaingun, and I'll show you gamers that are trained to kill with it. Show me a shotgun with zero kickback, and I'll show you gamers who can fire it without dislocating their shoulder. Show me a handgun which projects a perfectly accurate crosshair floating in midair wherever you point it, and I'll show you gamers trained to aim it.
As the grandparent you maligned pointed out, theres a world of difference between pushing some "random key combination" and ripping someone's spine out while screaming "Fatality!"
Congress created them based on interstate commerce clause. One of the few uses of the clause that actually makes sense. Can you imagine what the US would be like if you couldn't operate a radio you bought in Missouri in Kansas because they use different base frequencies? Or if you were in Kansas City and you'd have to have two radios in your car for the drive across the border from KCMO to KCKS because Kansas ruled that it was illegal to receive broadcasts from Missouri while in Kansas? (hey, just like Canada and US satellite TV!) Or if Kansas ruled that interference with their radio waves was illegal and started taking Missouri stations to court for broadcasting on channels that interfered with their uses of the frequency?
Even on the subject of regulating what appears on those frequencies is within this scope. If Kansas rules against any nudity, foul language, or unwed mothers are to appear on TV, and Missouri allows a broadcast Playboy channel, whose job is it to build the lead wall between the two in order to keep the smut out of Kansas?
They should invite and encourage companies to do it...they plan to pay them with taxpayers' money.
Yes.
Of course, by "them" this refers to local companies (instead of the Big Telcos) that will inevitably provide hardware, administration, and other services for the network. Or did you think the mayor was going to go out and put wireless antennas up on lightpoles all by him/herself?
He was the first, he does what he deems fit with it. What's wrong with that?
If he wants the government to protect his monopoly on his idea, then he better damn well deem fit to use it.
Take this eolas patent thats in the news now. They saw fit to sit on it for years, then started in on the lawsuits. If I want to collect unemployment benefits from the government, I have to prove I'm at least trying to get a job, why not require patent holders prove they're at least trying to implement their patent if they want the government-backed monopoly? Then we'd at least be able to call it innovation and not just minelaying.
Its your representatives. If they are willing to get bought out by corporations that is your problem.
Yeah, a shame that these so called "representatives" aren't even elected, so they don't even answer to the citizens of the countries they "represent". Don't you find it odd that the elected portion of the EU repeatedly turned down software patents while these "representatives" are going full steam ahead?
the groupthink here won't allow me to expound on that, so I won't bother.
To counter groupthink, you'd have to first think, but most of the people who blindly defend software patents fail to do that.
What do you think will happen if this EU directive passes, and countries that previously did not accept software patents are forced to accept patents from those countries that do? You ARE aware that software patents are allowed in some countries, and that the EU is acting in its capacity to "smooth out" legal differences to facilitate trade right? Just wanted to make sure you're not spouting off bullshit about things you have no clue about. So what happens when your 5-year-old product meets the 2-year-old patent that suddenly materializes from another country where they didn't care about your software as prior art?
Before you bitch and whine about groupthink, note that this post has nothing to do with goodness or badness of patents, or abuse of the patent system or anything, it simply points out that the change in patent law will allow companies in countries with patents to wake up one day and crush everyone else.
The problem is that a majority of the services bought by tax money goes out to benefit everyone. Local fire department? Even if your house never catches on fire, good coverage will make your insurance premiums lower. Schools? Even if you're an old fogey with no kids, educated children are less likely to become ruffians who you have to chase off your yard with a cane. Medical care? Even if you're never sick, preventative health care would reduce the number of days of work lost to sick days, plus contain outbreaks of infectious disease before it becomes widespread (too bad America doesn't buy into this). Water? Electricity? Sewage? At one time the only effective way to get pipes and wires to every person in the city was for the government to do it itself, and in doing so it modernized life for everyone.
Wireless is a bit harder to justify as a good-for-everyone deal. But what if a city decided to set up wireless points and ask the users to pay for it rather than doing it with their taxes? This law (from the first time this dupe was posted) would still make it illegal, because the purpose of the law isn't to say what cities should or should not do with tax money, its to make sure that people don't get wireless service until one of the Big Telecom companies deigns to provide the service in a suitably overcharged and crippled format.
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far, far worse for the "inventor" than issued later after the application has been strengthened (and the opposite is true for humankind, which should make the limp-wristed hippy socialists happy.))
Oh SNAP! A jibe at the "hippy socialists" who belive that issuing shitty patents is bad for everyone! Mod parent up +10 LOLOLOLOL!!1!?!oneeleven
I suppose you're going to pay my legal fees if I get sued over a "flawed patent"? If you're going to make such grandiose statements, you should either "put up or shut up" as we limp-wristed socialists say. Maybe you'll pay Apple's lawyer's salaries out of your own pocket for the time they take defending against this patent when they could be out smacking down websites about their products?
but THIS is not indicative of THAT problem.
If issuing patents that are blatantly invalid either due to invalid subject matter (in this case) or due to consisting entirely of pre-existing technology (in the winamp/Rio... err... ACC "music jukebox" patent) is "not THAT problem" then I want to know what "THAT" problem is.
Considering that the Rio performs more than half the claims in that patent, yes, it does.
The remainder of the claims could be performed on any PC with a cdrom drive and winamp before 2000 as well, leaving a patent good for a voice-controlled media player with the ability to record voice and attach those voice files to tracks and to rip DVD-Audio, and which has separate physical gain controls for left and right channels, as well as a physical gain control for line in.
Claim 1 says protecting publically available software from unauthorized use, using a successful identity verification and where such identity information is usable in an "electronic commerce ooperation" and people can download the software and be unable to run it if they don't provide a valid identity.
I don't know, that sounds like the average mainframe situation where you can ftp via anonymous ftp and download whatever executables you feel like, or you can telnet in, login with a userid, run a job, and be billed per CPU-Hour to your userid.
It doesn't help that the person who wrote this can't even speak english as any of their languages.
They claim
A way to keep unauthorized users from using software by:
1) checking to see if it knows the user ("existing identity information")
2) Only allowing access if the user is known, "wherein"
3) this identity information can "enable e-commerce" (which I assume to mean the userid is tied to a credit card, based on following claims).
4) That last line is total gibberish, but I think (and I'm not a lawyer and I don't speak gibberish) that it means that you can download the software WITHOUT identity information, but then you will be unable to operate it.
If I were apple, I would contend that most of this patent does not apply since (aside from the fact that MUSIC is not software) the itunes music files are not publically available and cannot be downloaded at all without first identifying yourself to itunes.
Later claims (starting at 6) discuss individually distributed "software" which I take to mean me giving you a DRM'd copy of something I bought, however each of these claims specifically mentions e-commerce operations which I understand to mean some way of allowing you to buy access to the file I gave you, which you cannot (you have to buy and download a whole new file directly from itms)
The hilarious part is that if this company goes around charging everyone 12%, they'll probably single-handedly kill DRM unless they're in the pocket of some other player in the music sales arena, who will be benefitting from their patent royalty-free.
Having never played the game and only listening to other people complain about the auction house in WoW, I'd have to say I have reservations that little Bobby will learn anything about real world economics from the game.
However, even if little Bobby did learn economics from a video game, there is a vast gap between intellectual knowledge and physical knowledge. Claiming that playing GTA at 8 years of age would make Bobby physically capable of drawing a bead, firing, and hitting three police officers in rapid succession then stealing (hotwiring?) and escaping in a police car makes as much sense as claiming that playing WoW at 8 years of age would make Bobby capable of picking up a Greatsword and chopping through a reasonable-sized tree in a single blow.
in that case if your girlfriend (I know, wrong web site to make such an assumption)
Damn straight. But thats my point. Without a need for tampons, no number of tampon commercials will convince me to buy some. Just like no number of violent games will convince me to flip out and kill people since I don't have a need to kill people.
The first claims specifically describes most software license servers, at least as long as they can check the identity of the user running the software and grant or deny the right to use that software. This was filed in 1998, but I know that the university I went to used license servers before that time, however they may or may not have done anything beyond counting the number of users.
The remainder of the claims discuss being able to accept payments, which I suspect was not a feature of license servers at the time (most of which were used for corporations or universities or other large bodies that already paid for their software)
I take that alllll back. ANY mainframe user would have done all of the above, PLUS been billed for CPU time. The only thing new in this patent is the automatic credit card billing feature, and I bet you can find a shareware sales site out there that issues usernames and passwords, and generates keys that specifically only work with your username in your application, and that can process your credit card. (I know for a fact that winrar registration does this now, but back in 97 I was too busy ignoring the "buy now!" dialogs in my apps to see how their license key/serial number schemes worked)
Too bad Apple will probably pay these people to go away instead of getting these patents struck down. When stupid patents like these are issued, it does nothing but devalue all the real work done out there by real inventors who created these things (like the DVD-Audio section of the prior patent)
From AAD's patent here Claim 1 (the base for ALL the other claims in the patent) reads:
Now, the thing to remember is that winamp has been around since sometime before 1999, ie more than a year before this patent was filed.
The only SLIGHTLY new thing here would be the "select a group of soundtracks" which sounds like "album shuffle" to me. The rest? Not a single thing MiniDisc didn't do in 1991. It's pretty clear that its not itunes thats infringing, because the only thing it does that napster and/or winamp didn't was download tracks from a main server and take your money.
Lets look at the other claims here:
2) plays a CD (how many years have we had cd players?)
3) edit an audio track
4) seems to mean that even if you have a cd in the drive you can play tracks from memory. Just like winamp.
5) edit an audio track using a "manually operable function controller"... are they calling volume adjustment "editing"?
6) "at least one sound track in the data storage memory is organizable into at least one group of sound tracks." Wow, a playlist editor?
7) "one manually operable function controller" for organizing sound tracks. When I use a mouse to rearrange songs in my winamp playlist using a "manually operable function controller"?
8) Peak level indicator (like winamp).
9) "such that names are assignable to at least one sound track in the data storage memory." OH MY GOD! THEY INVENTED THE ALBUM FIELD OF THE ID3 TAG! BOW TO THEIR INTELLIGENCE! Or you could just mean saving your playlist to a file and giving it a name. Winamp, and this claim is so oldschool its playschool.
10) "manually operable function controller" for assigning names to your winamp playlists. Like a keyboard!
11) Names assignable to at least one group of soundtracks. Could be the directory I store all my playlists in.
12) the obligatory device for naming groups of soundtracks
13) Uses a harddrive@!!%@2!@ wow, thats original!
14) Uses a line-in jack. Just like MD players right after Sony discovered that nobody cared about the optical inputs
15) Line Out Jack. Doesn't de
Thanks! I had seen a review of it a long time ago, but didn't realize it was available as a PDF. Filesystems have always been something of a side interest to me.
The CEO answers to the owners of the company. If the owners disapprove of who the company's money is being donated to, they can fire the CEO.
Before or after the money's gone?
And would you approve of a corporation consisting of 100 stockholders to get a 101st vote in the next presidential election? If so would you base it on the majority of stockholders or the majority of voting shares? And what precinct would the corporation vote in and who would cast the ballot?
Yeah kind of like how they had to step in on the private sector with that VHS vs betamax thing
Not even remotely the same thing. Using betamax didn't cause anyone's heart monitors to fail or interfere with any plane guidance towers. Given that its proven that companies don't give a shit about what happens to everyone else, without regulation they would build cheap unshielded devices that would be capable of pumping out massive amounts of interference.
There's a reason why the US Army uses video simulations, like Full Spectrum Warrior for example, to train its troops: it works.
I'll believe it works when I see the Army outfitting its troops with mouse-controlled machine guns that have zero kickback at all and tanks whose controls consist of "W A S D" buttons.
Until then I'll remain fully convinced that the reason the Army uses video games is because someone paid them to use video games, potentially as a marketing ploy, if not just good ol' nepotism.
As for Jack Thompson and anyone else who believes that games make people kill, keep in mind that in 2003 there were 0.1 murders per thousand people in this country, and with a population of almost 300M people at the time, that makes about 30K murder victims. With nearly 20 million copies of the latest GTA sold (according to Mr. Thompson's answers to the questions), that means that not a single person more than 0.15% of the GTA gaming population has killed someone (assuming that the vast majority of the gamers who bought the latest game also bought earlier GTA games). Considerably fewer than that when you consider the number of people who have killed more than one victim. And even fewer than that when you consider the number of people who kill yet have never even played a video game, much less GTA.
otherwise commercials would be useless
You mean like the tampon commercials that make me immediately rush out and buy a box, just in time to get back and see the car commercial? These days I never seem to get to watch any TV shows, and I'm always so in debt!</sarcasm>
Even without an instant cause and effect, the only people who buy shit they'll never use are those who already have mental problems and who stay up til 4 in the morning, telephone in hand, buying all these things that they saw on TV. Years of advertisements will not wear down my resistance to buying a box of tampons (though marriage probably will).
where you play the Germans exterminating jews in WWII?
Aside from the argument of whether that would be any fun, consider the somewhat recent WWII game where you play the Americans, killing Japanese soldiers. It was released in Japan, and met considerable success considering that they still played as Americans killing Japanese soldiers.
I suspect that the difference depends on how easily offended someone is, not how you offend them.
all the repetitive common sense answers stacked up next to the extremist answers...what we already all feel on the issue, a massive disconnect
Yet this could be the intention too: On the left are the consistent views of a majority of Americans, on the right are the views of a few extremists who want to sue game developers. Note the massive disconnect. Clearly the lawsuit happy extremists are out of touch with reality and need a time out.
I mean sucks like a hover upright.
Sshhh! You'll spoil the new Dalek design!
ext3 is ext2 with a journal, thats all.
If you want to see what filesystems are like when you add database features, look up some BeFS documentation from BeOS. There's a (sadly apparently now out of print) textbook on building filesystems using BeFS as a guide. While it's not really a database (it allows you define arbitrary indexes and allows searching on those indexes, but lacks most other features a database user would be familiar with) using it gives you a pretty good idea of how one that really was a database (with central data storage, relational algebra and set operations, etc.) would work.
...a cuddly toy. That connects to a network. And has the possibility of taking video and pictures?
Only if its named Margarine Von Calorie-Half.
This provides evidence how?
People talk about games as "trainers" and "murder simulators" but nobody talks about the fact that the interface with the game has no analog in the real world.
Show me a +mouselook chaingun, and I'll show you gamers that are trained to kill with it. Show me a shotgun with zero kickback, and I'll show you gamers who can fire it without dislocating their shoulder. Show me a handgun which projects a perfectly accurate crosshair floating in midair wherever you point it, and I'll show you gamers trained to aim it.
As the grandparent you maligned pointed out, theres a world of difference between pushing some "random key combination" and ripping someone's spine out while screaming "Fatality!"
to aim for the body center
HEADSHOT!
Congress created them based on interstate commerce clause. One of the few uses of the clause that actually makes sense. Can you imagine what the US would be like if you couldn't operate a radio you bought in Missouri in Kansas because they use different base frequencies? Or if you were in Kansas City and you'd have to have two radios in your car for the drive across the border from KCMO to KCKS because Kansas ruled that it was illegal to receive broadcasts from Missouri while in Kansas? (hey, just like Canada and US satellite TV!) Or if Kansas ruled that interference with their radio waves was illegal and started taking Missouri stations to court for broadcasting on channels that interfered with their uses of the frequency?
Even on the subject of regulating what appears on those frequencies is within this scope. If Kansas rules against any nudity, foul language, or unwed mothers are to appear on TV, and Missouri allows a broadcast Playboy channel, whose job is it to build the lead wall between the two in order to keep the smut out of Kansas?
They should invite and encourage companies to do it...they plan to pay them with taxpayers' money.
Yes.
Of course, by "them" this refers to local companies (instead of the Big Telcos) that will inevitably provide hardware, administration, and other services for the network. Or did you think the mayor was going to go out and put wireless antennas up on lightpoles all by him/herself?
Note: /. may edit out the
<sarcasm>
tags.
Awesome! New sig!
He was the first, he does what he deems fit with it. What's wrong with that?
If he wants the government to protect his monopoly on his idea, then he better damn well deem fit to use it.
Take this eolas patent thats in the news now. They saw fit to sit on it for years, then started in on the lawsuits. If I want to collect unemployment benefits from the government, I have to prove I'm at least trying to get a job, why not require patent holders prove they're at least trying to implement their patent if they want the government-backed monopoly? Then we'd at least be able to call it innovation and not just minelaying.
Its your representatives. If they are willing to get bought out by corporations that is your problem.
Yeah, a shame that these so called "representatives" aren't even elected, so they don't even answer to the citizens of the countries they "represent". Don't you find it odd that the elected portion of the EU repeatedly turned down software patents while these "representatives" are going full steam ahead?
the groupthink here won't allow me to expound on that, so I won't bother.
To counter groupthink, you'd have to first think, but most of the people who blindly defend software patents fail to do that.
What do you think will happen if this EU directive passes, and countries that previously did not accept software patents are forced to accept patents from those countries that do? You ARE aware that software patents are allowed in some countries, and that the EU is acting in its capacity to "smooth out" legal differences to facilitate trade right? Just wanted to make sure you're not spouting off bullshit about things you have no clue about. So what happens when your 5-year-old product meets the 2-year-old patent that suddenly materializes from another country where they didn't care about your software as prior art?
Before you bitch and whine about groupthink, note that this post has nothing to do with goodness or badness of patents, or abuse of the patent system or anything, it simply points out that the change in patent law will allow companies in countries with patents to wake up one day and crush everyone else.
Ok, don't want to pay taxes, that's peachy.
The problem is that a majority of the services bought by tax money goes out to benefit everyone. Local fire department? Even if your house never catches on fire, good coverage will make your insurance premiums lower. Schools? Even if you're an old fogey with no kids, educated children are less likely to become ruffians who you have to chase off your yard with a cane. Medical care? Even if you're never sick, preventative health care would reduce the number of days of work lost to sick days, plus contain outbreaks of infectious disease before it becomes widespread (too bad America doesn't buy into this). Water? Electricity? Sewage? At one time the only effective way to get pipes and wires to every person in the city was for the government to do it itself, and in doing so it modernized life for everyone.
Wireless is a bit harder to justify as a good-for-everyone deal. But what if a city decided to set up wireless points and ask the users to pay for it rather than doing it with their taxes? This law (from the first time this dupe was posted) would still make it illegal, because the purpose of the law isn't to say what cities should or should not do with tax money, its to make sure that people don't get wireless service until one of the Big Telecom companies deigns to provide the service in a suitably overcharged and crippled format.