I think you fundamentally misunderstood his statement, thought the random throwaway statement at the beginning about software being covered by copyright didn't help.
He talked about how someone could build a machine with mechanisms (triggered by switches) built into it and patent that machine. But once that machine was invented, nobody else should be able to come along and patent using the machine with a certain set of switches on or off, because the switches and their options were already included in the original invention.
I think it's easy to see where they are going: You take your Amazon phone to the store, snap a picture of what you want, and get it shipped to you. Or not.
Amazon then uses the decisions and GPS coordinates of the people using their phone to discover that store X in your city is cheaper than Amazon. They then lower the price of that item that they show to the people whose phones are or have been in that store, until the people in that store start buying it from Amazon instead.
On the other hand, litigation encourages innovation through design-arounds.
Aside from clear ownership of invention, it's also necessary to understand what is patented. Setting aside Microsoft's "we've patented this but we're not telling you which patents they are" there are cases like the "in-app purchase" patents that have absolutely no mention of purchasing in the claims (the claims are specifically about providing feedback to the developer through an app). Is buying a smurfberry "providing feedback"? I guess we'll have to wait for someone to spend a million bucks to fight it in court in order to find out.
Even when it's clear who owns the patent and how the patent applies, if you do a workaround you'll still likely find yourself on the other end of a C&D letter advising you that your app looks like it infringes their patent and if you don't settle now you'll face an expensive discovery process and have to hand over your source code to us to prove that your code doesn't do what the patent says it does. Not a big deal for OSS, but for proprietary software the prospect of handing over the family jewels to the competition isn't a good one.
And at the end of it all, after you've shown them your source code, shown them your workaround, shown them that you don't do what the patent says it does? They can pull the "Doctrine of Equivalents" card, and claim that despite the fact that the patent doesn't specifically name your workaround in the claims, it still applies. Enjoy your million dollar lawsuit.
So, Samsung is scamming Apple by selling Android phones that compete with Apple's phones?
Only when they violate Apple's patents to do so.
On a more serious side, if Samsung ignored all the FCC regulations and sold untested phones to save a few bucks over Apple's FCC-regulated phones, then yes.
Of note is that Alienware is preconfiguring the computer to boot straight to steam. Microsoft has famously resisted OEMs dicking around with the installation for years (ever wonder why nobody sells a windows 8 computer ready to use with all the de-metroing apps pre-installed? From all the 8 hate, you'd think an "easy to use" windows 8 computer that looks like windows 7 would sell like fucking hotcakes)
Something big happened behind the scenes, whatever it was, my guess is that everyone got what they wanted from the Linux Steam box (except maybe Linux).
It's a common laptop feature, but it works because both the awesome GPU and the cheap GPU are integrated.
You can do it on the desktop, you just have to buy a 3dfx Voodoo card:) (it had a passthrough cable so you would plug it into your regular video card then your monitor into the 3dfx card... without that you'd need to plug your monitor into your fancy gaming video card whenever you wanted to use it).
I didn't bother to read the story, but I'm going to talk out my ass here and assume what comcast wants to do is sell comcast customers an "on the go" service. You go visit Houston and you have 150000 hotspots you can sign into with your comcast account. The bandwidth you use is tied to your account and deducted from your account's cap.
A good PDF engine is one that displays the document exactly the same way on every screen or printout, that is what the PDF specification demands. A bad PDF engine rearranges words on the page, changes fonts or font sizes, or removes margins in order to make it easier to read.
Personally, I want a PDF reader that can detect and automatically chop off margins and the binding-side gutter in order to maximize space for text (or at least allow me to manually set even/odd page clipping rectangles that it applies automatically when I change pages, without me having to rezoom each page (or worse, since I'm zoomed in, having each "next page" press take me to the bottom blank inch of the page so I have to press twice to get to the top of the next page then pan down to get the blank inch off the top of the screen and show all the text).
drug users are in the same class as terrorists and pedophiles?
Yes. Thanks to the War on Some Drugs, the government can steal your property without warrant or due process via Civil Forfeiture: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/...
And how is it exactly we're supposed to vote with our feet when there's like 2 internet providers (in a lot of cases just 1) available to any one location?
One of the things that putting braces on every if/for/while/etc. does is give merges more context to keep from fucking up, or at least a chance to cause brace mismatch.
I'm not so sure. I've lost track of the number of times where patch has chosen a completely random
....} ..} }
to wedge a new } else { in, because at the end of a block, all the braces look the same.
I put an end to that by ending blocks with }// if (foo)
Slashdot Mirror
I think you fundamentally misunderstood his statement, thought the random throwaway statement at the beginning about software being covered by copyright didn't help.
He talked about how someone could build a machine with mechanisms (triggered by switches) built into it and patent that machine. But once that machine was invented, nobody else should be able to come along and patent using the machine with a certain set of switches on or off, because the switches and their options were already included in the original invention.
I think it's easy to see where they are going: You take your Amazon phone to the store, snap a picture of what you want, and get it shipped to you. Or not.
Amazon then uses the decisions and GPS coordinates of the people using their phone to discover that store X in your city is cheaper than Amazon. They then lower the price of that item that they show to the people whose phones are or have been in that store, until the people in that store start buying it from Amazon instead.
On the other hand, litigation encourages innovation through design-arounds.
Aside from clear ownership of invention, it's also necessary to understand what is patented. Setting aside Microsoft's "we've patented this but we're not telling you which patents they are" there are cases like the "in-app purchase" patents that have absolutely no mention of purchasing in the claims (the claims are specifically about providing feedback to the developer through an app). Is buying a smurfberry "providing feedback"? I guess we'll have to wait for someone to spend a million bucks to fight it in court in order to find out.
Even when it's clear who owns the patent and how the patent applies, if you do a workaround you'll still likely find yourself on the other end of a C&D letter advising you that your app looks like it infringes their patent and if you don't settle now you'll face an expensive discovery process and have to hand over your source code to us to prove that your code doesn't do what the patent says it does. Not a big deal for OSS, but for proprietary software the prospect of handing over the family jewels to the competition isn't a good one.
And at the end of it all, after you've shown them your source code, shown them your workaround, shown them that you don't do what the patent says it does? They can pull the "Doctrine of Equivalents" card, and claim that despite the fact that the patent doesn't specifically name your workaround in the claims, it still applies. Enjoy your million dollar lawsuit.
The RAM is responsible for damaging the file while it sits in a buffer waiting to be written to the disk in the first place.
When it comes to the cops, ignorance of the law is an excuse.
Please remove the "News for Nerds" tag line from your name
They took that off long ago. Now the logo in the corner just says "Slashdot".
So, Samsung is scamming Apple by selling Android phones that compete with Apple's phones?
Only when they violate Apple's patents to do so.
On a more serious side, if Samsung ignored all the FCC regulations and sold untested phones to save a few bucks over Apple's FCC-regulated phones, then yes.
Actually, in New York City, a Taxi Medallion (required on a per-car basis) is around a million dollars.
Of note is that Alienware is preconfiguring the computer to boot straight to steam. Microsoft has famously resisted OEMs dicking around with the installation for years (ever wonder why nobody sells a windows 8 computer ready to use with all the de-metroing apps pre-installed? From all the 8 hate, you'd think an "easy to use" windows 8 computer that looks like windows 7 would sell like fucking hotcakes)
Something big happened behind the scenes, whatever it was, my guess is that everyone got what they wanted from the Linux Steam box (except maybe Linux).
It's a common laptop feature, but it works because both the awesome GPU and the cheap GPU are integrated.
You can do it on the desktop, you just have to buy a 3dfx Voodoo card :) (it had a passthrough cable so you would plug it into your regular video card then your monitor into the 3dfx card... without that you'd need to plug your monitor into your fancy gaming video card whenever you wanted to use it).
I didn't bother to read the story, but I'm going to talk out my ass here and assume what comcast wants to do is sell comcast customers an "on the go" service. You go visit Houston and you have 150000 hotspots you can sign into with your comcast account. The bandwidth you use is tied to your account and deducted from your account's cap.
"call 1 for sales"?
Clearly your job is to warn everyone of the impending zombie apocalypse
You can get your copy from www.totallynotnsa.com/truecrypt.7.1.nsa.zip
A good PDF engine is one that displays the document exactly the same way on every screen or printout, that is what the PDF specification demands. A bad PDF engine rearranges words on the page, changes fonts or font sizes, or removes margins in order to make it easier to read.
Personally, I want a PDF reader that can detect and automatically chop off margins and the binding-side gutter in order to maximize space for text (or at least allow me to manually set even/odd page clipping rectangles that it applies automatically when I change pages, without me having to rezoom each page (or worse, since I'm zoomed in, having each "next page" press take me to the bottom blank inch of the page so I have to press twice to get to the top of the next page then pan down to get the blank inch off the top of the screen and show all the text).
SELECT * FROM users WHERE USERNAME ILIKE '%'
"I think usernames should be case insensitive"
SQL's wildcard character is % (used in LIKE or ILIKE expressions).
Shaka, when the walls fell.
I'm saving up for a Stanley Steamer!
Yes. Thanks to the War on Some Drugs, the government can steal your property without warrant or due process via Civil Forfeiture: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/...
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F... since it apparently went over about a dozen slashdotter's heads.
Now we can watch our rights be taken away in order to punish assholes, on top of drug users, pedos, terrorists, and hackers.
Remember folks, what the government does to weev, it can do to everyone else.
And how is it exactly we're supposed to vote with our feet when there's like 2 internet providers (in a lot of cases just 1) available to any one location?
You can get DirecTV!
Tooth development and calcification of baby teeth begins in uterus. The teeth don't magically appear at 6 months old.
Is that what they called them back then? I thought they were called soda fountains.
One of the things that putting braces on every if/for/while/etc. does is give merges more context to keep from fucking up, or at least a chance to cause brace mismatch.
I'm not so sure. I've lost track of the number of times where patch has chosen a completely random
to wedge a new } else { in, because at the end of a block, all the braces look the same.
I put an end to that by ending blocks with } // if (foo)