No, if food were free, you'd eat *better*, not more (hopefully). Why don't you have filet mignon and lobster every night instead of Big Macs?
Of course, this breaks down once you can't get any better (hence the "if salt were free" is a somewhat better argument, though I bet I could come up with some creative uses for free salt).
Once all the IT jobs are outsourced, it will only be a matter of time before the Indians decide they don't need the American companies to tell them what to do, and can just send over some Indians on L-1 visas to interface with *their* customers.
Actually, the point here isn't about the protectedness of the speech per-se. Both parodies and satire are as protected as any other kind of speech.
The point is about fair use. It is considered fair use (no permission needed, though mechanical royalties may have to be paid) to parody the original song. It is not considered fair use to use the original song to satirize something *other* than the original song, and therefore permission can legally be denied by the author of the song (or assignees).
Come on, the text shown in a dialog box is nor more a lie than the text shown in a command line. Either one is function of what the designer thought the user should see.
It happens that on Linux, the safe assumption is that the user will be effective as a SysAdmin, and therefore is better off seeing more detailed information.
In Windows, it happens that the assumption is that the user is someone's grandmother, and therefore needs text that says something like "go find a SysAdmin to fix this problem". (What you're looking for is the error log, but that's pretty well hidden and extremely incomplete as well, because most Windows programmers incorrectly assume that *all* users are someone's grandmother).
That's not a function of CLI vs. GUI at all. A programmer could, if he wished, show exactly the same information as the CLI on the GUI, but not vice-versa. Way to dis a better tool!
Even 50 years ago, they were using exactly the same technology to figure out this stuff that they're using today: photo finishes. The fact that today the pixs are digital and available instantly and in days of yore you had to wait for them to get developed is merely an optimization.
Here's an interesting scenario: people who want this discount will of course slow down more on freeways to get it.
Let's suppose our theory is correct, and these people are more of a hazard than those that travel with the flow of traffic.
If insurance companies are smart, they will observe this and realize that they can't conceivably start charging a surcharge for slower drivers.
Their only possible response will have to be to quietly discontinue the program.
Let's assume for another moment that the opposite happens, and these drivers actually *are* statistically safer (I don't believe that for a second, BTW).
Clearly, and insurance company would have to be foolish not to offer a discount to these truly safer drivers. The cost of the program is a sunk cost. Once they've implemented it, if even 1% of their customers use the system and they can save money with it, they will continue using it.
So, we can prove our hypothesis by watching and seeing whether this program continues for any length of time.
The reason MS tries to bundle large changes into Service Packs is that testing compatibility for all the possible combinations of small hotfixes is a) impossible, and b) expensive.
At least with big chunks all those parts have been (reasonably) thoroughly tested to work with *each other*.
Also, if you look at the guts of what they're doing, it's not that easy to just split things apart. The new firewall is more than just turning on the old one, it requires changes all over the place to improve its security and effectiveness.
Of course, most people aren't going to realize that they're effectively getting a whole new OS rather than a patch...
I can already see you responding "just write software to actuate X", but that leaves the question: where does the X come from? The argument against software patents is just that--the "write software to actuate X" is easy and obvious, and therefore shouldn't be patentable. It's the X itself that should get the patent.
That's exactly the point, though. If using software to do X isn't patentable, that means, conversely, that a patent can't protect against a product that uses software to do X.
Using your door lock example: let's take the original "Simplex" lock (5 pushbutton combination lock).
If software isn't patentable, then someone could come in and replace those physical linkages with switches, add a tiny microprocessor that activates the unlocking mechanism and undercut the original inventor, thus rendering his patent useless.
It's always been the idea behind the physical device that's patented, not the device itself. Otherwise it would be more akin to copyright.
We are quickly coming up on an era (some would say that we're already there) where *everything* can be done with general purpose actuators and general purpose computers.
There are damn few inventions you can make that can't be implemented at least partly in software.
Where does that leave us? Either a) nothing can be effectively protected by a patent, because someone merely needs to implement a portion of it in software to get around the patent, or b) processes implemented in software have to be covered by patents.
Your analogy about being able to (very slowly, so as to be different not only in degree but in kind) mentally perform the instructions executed by a computer now comes back to byte you, BTW, because any software can be implemented purely in a mechanism that performs the same steps (if, albeit, so slowly and inefficiently as to be different not only in degree but in kind).
Also, doing the actual calculations is purely a mental activity, true. Actuating I/O devices is not. That's entirely a physical process. It happens to be done by a general purpose device in this case, but that doesn't make it a mental process.
All patents have always been about ideas. Otherwise a trivial modification of your patented process/device/whatever would render the patent protection useless. It's just that, now, it's trivial to add software steps to *any* invention, at almost no cost. Now... there is a doctrine that says that adding a trivial step to a mechanism or process just to get around a patent isn't allowed.
Here's the kicker, though: software is almost always the cheapest way to do anything. Therefore the doctrine that says that trivial steps solely to get around the patent aren't allowed goes out the window.
No, no, no. The previous workaround to the unfortunate truth that "information wants to be free" was secrecy. That hack is much worse than patents when all is said and done.
But it *has* been around for a very very long time.
He's right you know. The only reason MP3 players took off was because people were already getting massive amounts of music for free.
Honestly, what college student is going to legitimately own 10,000 songs anyway?
Same with eBooks. Until you can download them easily and put the publishing industry out of business, they won't be popular. Publishers know this, which is why they won't ever release non-DRM'd eBooks.
I.e. it will happen when flying pigs slip on the ice covering Hell's floor and crash into the monkeys flying out of Satan's butt.
Ok, so let's apply the 2x2 matrix to the concept of 2x2 matrices, and what types of people use them. 2x2 matrices can be classified as useful tools or stupid wastes of time on one axis and as appropriate to a situation or inapplicable on the other.
Powerful vs. Weak
Appropriate: Leaders vs. Managers
Bogus: Pointy-Haired Bosses vs. Blathering Idiots
Now, if anyone can tell the difference between these types of people, this might Appropriate and Powerful:-).
Yes, body PANs have been done before. The invention claimed here is a PAN that happens to also transmit power through the skin, and not only that, but one where the target device communicates its power requirements to the host device through the skin (pretty cool, actually) such that the host can modulate a different signal specific to that device.
I haven't seen any prior art combining these elements, nor do they seem particularly obvious to me (at least, when I read it, I said "cool", which is my usual metric for would someone skilled in the art, such as myself, have anticipated the invention based on what was known at the time).
There's nothing at all wrong, illegitimate, or invalid about patenting combinations of previously known technologies. Heck, *all* inventions are combinations of previously known technologies.
His chemistry degree is from Caltech, and his literature doctorate is from Yale (not to gratuitously throw fancy names around like they mean everything in the world... but he knows his stuff and can also write about it).
Here's a quote from Evergreen Solar's financial report:
Product gross margin for the quarter ended December 31, 2003 was -220%, a decrease from -99% for the same period in 2002.
Don't be so sure about the math not working out. Remember: gross margin is (product revenue - manufacturing cost of goods sold) / product revenue. There's only 1 way for that to be negative...
I wonder why people continue to buy into this bit of "worst educational system in the world". Sure, test results suck (mostly because of economic disparities if you look at the data), but the real world results (at least *so far*:-) seem to indicate that it's not too shabby.
Ok, at least the post-secondary education system isn't too shabby. The primary (and even secondary) education systems in the US are designed to turn most people into the mindless drones they were always destined to be anyway. It seems pretty successful at that, actually.
Well... disproving this one aspect of the theory would not invalidate the remainder of the theory, which has been verified experiementally numerous times.
Newton's Laws of Motion didn't become "bunk" all of a sudden when Einstein (and later QM) discovered holes in it.
The speed of light bit is actually really well tested. It really does take lots more energy to continue speeding things up near light speed, and the trend of that is completely consistent with it taking an infinite amount of energy to get a non-massless object all the way up to c.
Additionally, time dilation is well demonstrated, and it definitely would allow the creation of time machines (something I morally object to:-) if faster than light travel were possible.
What rock have you been hiding under such that you think people with a lot of money *don't inherently* have a lot of power over those that don't? Money is power. Get over it.
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I'm sure the campus AUP prohibits sharing of copywrited material.
Of course, this breaks down once you can't get any better (hence the "if salt were free" is a somewhat better argument, though I bet I could come up with some creative uses for free salt).
Once all the IT jobs are outsourced, it will only be a matter of time before the Indians decide they don't need the American companies to tell them what to do, and can just send over some Indians on L-1 visas to interface with *their* customers.
So, essentially what she's saying is that we lose jobs on every transaction, but we'll make it up in volume?
The point is about fair use. It is considered fair use (no permission needed, though mechanical royalties may have to be paid) to parody the original song. It is not considered fair use to use the original song to satirize something *other* than the original song, and therefore permission can legally be denied by the author of the song (or assignees).
It happens that on Linux, the safe assumption is that the user will be effective as a SysAdmin, and therefore is better off seeing more detailed information.
In Windows, it happens that the assumption is that the user is someone's grandmother, and therefore needs text that says something like "go find a SysAdmin to fix this problem". (What you're looking for is the error log, but that's pretty well hidden and extremely incomplete as well, because most Windows programmers incorrectly assume that *all* users are someone's grandmother).
That's not a function of CLI vs. GUI at all. A programmer could, if he wished, show exactly the same information as the CLI on the GUI, but not vice-versa. Way to dis a better tool!
Even 50 years ago, they were using exactly the same technology to figure out this stuff that they're using today: photo finishes. The fact that today the pixs are digital and available instantly and in days of yore you had to wait for them to get developed is merely an optimization.
Ummm. Photons have momentum. For this *not* to be transferred to the solar sail would be a violation of conservation of momentum.
For all X, X+4 - X = 4.
Let's suppose our theory is correct, and these people are more of a hazard than those that travel with the flow of traffic.
If insurance companies are smart, they will observe this and realize that they can't conceivably start charging a surcharge for slower drivers.
Their only possible response will have to be to quietly discontinue the program.
Let's assume for another moment that the opposite happens, and these drivers actually *are* statistically safer (I don't believe that for a second, BTW).
Clearly, and insurance company would have to be foolish not to offer a discount to these truly safer drivers. The cost of the program is a sunk cost. Once they've implemented it, if even 1% of their customers use the system and they can save money with it, they will continue using it.
So, we can prove our hypothesis by watching and seeing whether this program continues for any length of time.
At least with big chunks all those parts have been (reasonably) thoroughly tested to work with *each other*.
Also, if you look at the guts of what they're doing, it's not that easy to just split things apart. The new firewall is more than just turning on the old one, it requires changes all over the place to improve its security and effectiveness.
Of course, most people aren't going to realize that they're effectively getting a whole new OS rather than a patch...
That's exactly the point, though. If using software to do X isn't patentable, that means, conversely, that a patent can't protect against a product that uses software to do X.
Using your door lock example: let's take the original "Simplex" lock (5 pushbutton combination lock).
If software isn't patentable, then someone could come in and replace those physical linkages with switches, add a tiny microprocessor that activates the unlocking mechanism and undercut the original inventor, thus rendering his patent useless.
It's always been the idea behind the physical device that's patented, not the device itself. Otherwise it would be more akin to copyright.
We are quickly coming up on an era (some would say that we're already there) where *everything* can be done with general purpose actuators and general purpose computers.
There are damn few inventions you can make that can't be implemented at least partly in software.
Where does that leave us? Either a) nothing can be effectively protected by a patent, because someone merely needs to implement a portion of it in software to get around the patent, or b) processes implemented in software have to be covered by patents.
Your analogy about being able to (very slowly, so as to be different not only in degree but in kind) mentally perform the instructions executed by a computer now comes back to byte you, BTW, because any software can be implemented purely in a mechanism that performs the same steps (if, albeit, so slowly and inefficiently as to be different not only in degree but in kind).
Also, doing the actual calculations is purely a mental activity, true. Actuating I/O devices is not. That's entirely a physical process. It happens to be done by a general purpose device in this case, but that doesn't make it a mental process.
All patents have always been about ideas. Otherwise a trivial modification of your patented process/device/whatever would render the patent protection useless. It's just that, now, it's trivial to add software steps to *any* invention, at almost no cost. Now... there is a doctrine that says that adding a trivial step to a mechanism or process just to get around a patent isn't allowed.
Here's the kicker, though: software is almost always the cheapest way to do anything. Therefore the doctrine that says that trivial steps solely to get around the patent aren't allowed goes out the window.
But it *has* been around for a very very long time.
Honestly, what college student is going to legitimately own 10,000 songs anyway?
Same with eBooks. Until you can download them easily and put the publishing industry out of business, they won't be popular. Publishers know this, which is why they won't ever release non-DRM'd eBooks.
I.e. it will happen when flying pigs slip on the ice covering Hell's floor and crash into the monkeys flying out of Satan's butt.
That's inherent in the job that low-level programming languages such as C/C++ are intended to be used for.
Appropriate: Leaders vs. Managers
Bogus: Pointy-Haired Bosses vs. Blathering Idiots
Now, if anyone can tell the difference between these types of people, this might Appropriate and Powerful :-).
I haven't seen any prior art combining these elements, nor do they seem particularly obvious to me (at least, when I read it, I said "cool", which is my usual metric for would someone skilled in the art, such as myself, have anticipated the invention based on what was known at the time).
There's nothing at all wrong, illegitimate, or invalid about patenting combinations of previously known technologies. Heck, *all* inventions are combinations of previously known technologies.
His chemistry degree is from Caltech, and his literature doctorate is from Yale (not to gratuitously throw fancy names around like they mean everything in the world... but he knows his stuff and can also write about it).
Apparently their servers need louder fans.
Either that or store your pictures as TIFF in the camera *if you really don't care about how expensive your storage medium is*.
Product gross margin for the quarter ended December 31, 2003 was -220%, a decrease from -99% for the same period in 2002.
Don't be so sure about the math not working out. Remember: gross margin is (product revenue - manufacturing cost of goods sold) / product revenue. There's only 1 way for that to be negative...
Ok, at least the post-secondary education system isn't too shabby. The primary (and even secondary) education systems in the US are designed to turn most people into the mindless drones they were always destined to be anyway. It seems pretty successful at that, actually.
Newton's Laws of Motion didn't become "bunk" all of a sudden when Einstein (and later QM) discovered holes in it.
The speed of light bit is actually really well tested. It really does take lots more energy to continue speeding things up near light speed, and the trend of that is completely consistent with it taking an infinite amount of energy to get a non-massless object all the way up to c.
Additionally, time dilation is well demonstrated, and it definitely would allow the creation of time machines (something I morally object to :-) if faster than light travel were possible.
Don't get your hopes up.
What rock have you been hiding under such that you think people with a lot of money *don't inherently* have a lot of power over those that don't? Money is power. Get over it.