I have an AT&T POTS line, with zero frills (not even unlimited local dialing out), for about $17/mo with taxes, fees and so forth. Fully $8-9 of that monthly fee is taxes, fees, and other associated "recoveries," but it is a pretty cheap POTS line, so I still have phone service if the power goes out, etc.
I was personally thinking about the situation where you're using autopilot, but a "bad driver" tries to change into your lane. While the autopilot can maintain your lane/speed/distance/etc., can it also react to the incursion?
From TFA: "Techniques that are used include high-pressure treatment, pulsing electric fields, and high frequency sterilization. A sandwich prepared in this way turned out to be edible in seven years. The results can prove useful during the mission to Mars (although it seems that nobody dares to taste this sandwich yet)."
"Edible," as in "will be nutritious and non-toxic to humans," is significantly different from "edible," i.e., "palatable."
As a patent attorney, I can tell you that generally speaking a so-called "Final Rejection," is more dependent upon Patent Office budgeting procedures than the merits of the underlying patent application.
In order to control expenses at the PTO, and to prevent examiners from spending all their time with the more "tenacious" applicants, the PTO suggests that a second rejection typically be deemed "Final." All this really means is that you can file a "continuation" application, with a new filing fee to effectively buy more hours of the examiner's time.
While it is often annoying to clients, at least it tries to allocate costs to those people using the most resources.
Actually, the jurisdictional issues in this type of case have not been settled conclusively yet.
Mumma claims that there's no possible way Virginia would have jurisdiction over this dispute, but (and this is a big "but") if the trademark and/or defamation claims have any merit whatsoever (and we have no idea what the underlying facts are, so this is just a hypothetical), then arguably the Virginia courts do have jurisdiction over those claims, as that is "where the harm occurred." There are several other arguments favoring jurisdiction in Virginia, such as the litigation threats, etc.
Also, you may very well be correct that the OK anti-spam law will apply, but there is nothing preventing the federal court in VA from also settling that as a permissive counterclaim to the TM/defamation action.
However, when you start to play the litigation game, you have to be prepared for the possibility that the other side will fight back. If you make a lot of threats of litigation, expecting everyone to just cave and give you a few grand to "go away," you have to expect someone (even someone who is clearly "in the wrong") to fight back.
I *did* RTFA, which was a press release, and the other FA, from ArsTechnica. The ArsTechnica author simply concluded that it was a SLAPP suit.
By definition, concluding that a lawsuit is a SLAPP suit is an opinion. On its face, cruise.com's suit is simply a defamation and trademark case -- it could potentially be a SLAPP suit if Mumma can prove later that it was simply brought to shut down his protected speech, but since noone here at/. actually has any facts about the underlying defamation and trademark claims, it seems that it would be difficult for anyone to judge whether its claim has any merit.
As far as I can tell, though, this isn't a SLAPP suit. It seems to be a pre-emptive filing to gain "home court" advantage.
Firstly, while I wholeheartedly condemn spam and spammers, we should note that the "article" we all read was actually a press release by one party in litigation. There are probably some additional facts we don't know.
For example, it appears that Mummers sues many spammers in his home jurisdiction (OK) because of the favorable laws there, and makes a tidy profit off of his side business of suing spammers. While the spammer in question is no doubt sleazy, it seems that they knew a lawsuit was almost certainly coming in Oklahoma, so they pre-emptively filed it in Virginia (their home turf) so as to make it easier to litigate.
I guess the super-wealthy on Nantucket/Martha'sVineyard/CapeCod can't be content with their megamillion dollar properties, but they also have to control every bit of property that they can see.
I particularly liked the line that "we want the view to be the same one the Pilgrims saw."
Mortal Combat (Kombat?) and their other franchises will live on, as the good ones that have name recognition will be purchased at the Bankruptcy liquidation (and/or one company will purchase all assets outright, without the burden of the debts).
Never fear, the brands will continue to exist, but just in the hands of other companies.
This is precisely the sort of situation that the EFF typically looks into, and precisely the sort of reason that you (and I) should support the EFF if you like how they intervene on behalf of "the little guys."
>>>Even if you're right, if you run out of money for lawyers before they do, you're fucked.
While there's a grain of truth in what you state, the judge is still supposed to independently evaluate a claim before he/she issues a judgment. At a bare minimum, he will require a prima facie factual basis for the judgment, along with legal analysis (which his clerk should independently evaluate) that support the ruling.
On the other hand, with courts being crowded, the judge might not be as critical as he should.
HD (mpeg2) to DVD (mpeg2) should take an AthlonXP 2000 anywhere from 2-6 hours, depending upon the number of passes and how badly you want to maximize quality for your 4+ Gigs of DVD-R.
Right now, my computer does the same thing with the freeware DVDShrink from DVD-mpeg2 to DVD-mpeg2 (9 Gigs to 4 Gigs) in about 1-2 hours with "deep analysis."
Your AVI to VCD slow conversion may have been due to inefficient VCD conversion software, maximizing the number of passes, or some other reason.
As someone already mentioned, there really aren't any defenses... that's why most are settling.
However, for those who may not have actually done it (maybe had an open wireless connection, or the neighbor kid that you kindly let borrow your computer from time to time, etc.), it must be quite disheartening:
From the article:
>>>>> Still, the California consultant who recently agreed to pay the largest settlement in any of the lawsuits, $11,000, urged Internet users not to take solace in rare procedural victories.
"It scares me," Plank said. "For anyone fighting any of these lawsuits -- unless they have nothing to lose -- the only thing to do is settle. You have no power against these people."
Fine, fine fine. Not "glosses over," then. I should have said: "Makes light of." My point was simply that he discounted the value differential between the two products simply because his example purchaser already had an HDTV satellite box.
Even if you have an HDTV satellite box, having a built-in HDTV OTA tuner has value. (E.g., discontinuing satellite service gets rid of your HDTV locals with most satellite providers; alternatively he might want the ability to tune one signal with the Sat box and watch OTA with his built-in tuner; etc.).
For example, the Panasonic 42" plasma had a "consumer" and an "industrial" version. However, the article pointed out that the industrial version was $350 lower than the consumer version while glossing over the fact that the industrial version lacked an HDTV tuner, and built-in speakers. Clearly, the addition of those items justifies some increase, and 2-400 is reasonable given the cost of HDTV tuners as separate components.
In addition, he neglected to mention the difference in warranty duration (and the difference in customer service you might expect between a "name" brand such as RCA and a "generic" such as Coby).
An interesting idea, indeed, but California, beholden to the entertainment lobby, would never attempt such a thing. One additional problem would be the extremely high cost of valuing all of the copyrights... there aren't enough accountants to even handle all that work I would bet.
Also, IP is, to a certain extent, taxed ("maintentance fees" for patents, etc.) but those fees are not proportional to the perceived value of the underlying IP.
The olympics will, in fact, be this year, but unfortunately NBC, in their infinite [lack of] wisdom, has decided to not only show much of the games tape-delayed, but to show *ALL* HD coverage *AT LEAST* 24 hours delayed (so as not to detract from their pre-packaged schmaltzy prime-time programming).
Blah. NBC Sports died long ago... noone told NBC, unfortunately.
Slashdot Mirror
I have an AT&T POTS line, with zero frills (not even unlimited local dialing out), for about $17/mo with taxes, fees and so forth. Fully $8-9 of that monthly fee is taxes, fees, and other associated "recoveries," but it is a pretty cheap POTS line, so I still have phone service if the power goes out, etc.
I agree wholeheartedly.
I was personally thinking about the situation where you're using autopilot, but a "bad driver" tries to change into your lane. While the autopilot can maintain your lane/speed/distance/etc., can it also react to the incursion?
The real question is the definition of "edible."
From TFA: "Techniques that are used include high-pressure treatment, pulsing electric fields, and high frequency sterilization. A sandwich prepared in this way turned out to be edible in seven years. The results can prove useful during the mission to Mars (although it seems that nobody dares to taste this sandwich yet)."
"Edible," as in "will be nutritious and non-toxic to humans," is significantly different from "edible," i.e., "palatable."
Salary Caps == Antitrust Violation.
MLB has a statutory exemption.
NFL/NBA/NHL/etc. have an exemption because the caps are part of a "collective bargaining agreement."
So a salary cap would violate the antitrust laws unless you somehow convinced SAG to agree (pretty unlikely, I think).
That, together with the requirement to be constantly connected to the internet, will kill HD-DVD or Blu-Ray for me.
I was all set to be one of the first suckers to buy one of these, but if that's a requirement, I don't think I'll ever be purchasing one.
As a patent attorney, I can tell you that generally speaking a so-called "Final Rejection," is more dependent upon Patent Office budgeting procedures than the merits of the underlying patent application.
In order to control expenses at the PTO, and to prevent examiners from spending all their time with the more "tenacious" applicants, the PTO suggests that a second rejection typically be deemed "Final." All this really means is that you can file a "continuation" application, with a new filing fee to effectively buy more hours of the examiner's time.
While it is often annoying to clients, at least it tries to allocate costs to those people using the most resources.
"Receiving stolen goods" is a simplified label for the actual crime of "Receiving stolen goods knowing the same to be stolen," just FYI.
Actually, the jurisdictional issues in this type of case have not been settled conclusively yet.
Mumma claims that there's no possible way Virginia would have jurisdiction over this dispute, but (and this is a big "but") if the trademark and/or defamation claims have any merit whatsoever (and we have no idea what the underlying facts are, so this is just a hypothetical), then arguably the Virginia courts do have jurisdiction over those claims, as that is "where the harm occurred." There are several other arguments favoring jurisdiction in Virginia, such as the litigation threats, etc.
Also, you may very well be correct that the OK anti-spam law will apply, but there is nothing preventing the federal court in VA from also settling that as a permissive counterclaim to the TM/defamation action.
I agree with you wholeheartedly.
However, when you start to play the litigation game, you have to be prepared for the possibility that the other side will fight back. If you make a lot of threats of litigation, expecting everyone to just cave and give you a few grand to "go away," you have to expect someone (even someone who is clearly "in the wrong") to fight back.
I *did* RTFA, which was a press release, and the other FA, from ArsTechnica. The ArsTechnica author simply concluded that it was a SLAPP suit.
/. actually has any facts about the underlying defamation and trademark claims, it seems that it would be difficult for anyone to judge whether its claim has any merit.
By definition, concluding that a lawsuit is a SLAPP suit is an opinion. On its face, cruise.com's suit is simply a defamation and trademark case -- it could potentially be a SLAPP suit if Mumma can prove later that it was simply brought to shut down his protected speech, but since noone here at
As far as I can tell, though, this isn't a SLAPP suit. It seems to be a pre-emptive filing to gain "home court" advantage.
Firstly, while I wholeheartedly condemn spam and spammers, we should note that the "article" we all read was actually a press release by one party in litigation. There are probably some additional facts we don't know.
For example, it appears that Mummers sues many spammers in his home jurisdiction (OK) because of the favorable laws there, and makes a tidy profit off of his side business of suing spammers. While the spammer in question is no doubt sleazy, it seems that they knew a lawsuit was almost certainly coming in Oklahoma, so they pre-emptively filed it in Virginia (their home turf) so as to make it easier to litigate.
Thanks for that link. An excellent background story.
Dammit. I hate it when I'm wrong. The last time I investigated MCE 2005, they hadn't announced HDTV support. Thanks for the clarification.
MCE doesn't yet have HD support. This wasn't a "roundup" of all DVR systems.
As far as I knew, Media Center Edition doesn't have HD support. Not therefore surprising that they wouldn't include it in their roundup.
(perhaps the author meant that MCE was noticeably absent as an HD-DVR?)
Good link.
I guess the super-wealthy on Nantucket/Martha'sVineyard/CapeCod can't be content with their megamillion dollar properties, but they also have to control every bit of property that they can see.
I particularly liked the line that "we want the view to be the same one the Pilgrims saw."
Mortal Combat (Kombat?) and their other franchises will live on, as the good ones that have name recognition will be purchased at the Bankruptcy liquidation (and/or one company will purchase all assets outright, without the burden of the debts).
Never fear, the brands will continue to exist, but just in the hands of other companies.
This is precisely the sort of situation that the EFF typically looks into, and precisely the sort of reason that you (and I) should support the EFF if you like how they intervene on behalf of "the little guys."
>>>Even if you're right, if you run out of money for lawyers before they do, you're fucked.
While there's a grain of truth in what you state, the judge is still supposed to independently evaluate a claim before he/she issues a judgment. At a bare minimum, he will require a prima facie factual basis for the judgment, along with legal analysis (which his clerk should independently evaluate) that support the ruling.
On the other hand, with courts being crowded, the judge might not be as critical as he should.
HD (mpeg2) to DVD (mpeg2) should take an AthlonXP 2000 anywhere from 2-6 hours, depending upon the number of passes and how badly you want to maximize quality for your 4+ Gigs of DVD-R.
Right now, my computer does the same thing with the freeware DVDShrink from DVD-mpeg2 to DVD-mpeg2 (9 Gigs to 4 Gigs) in about 1-2 hours with "deep analysis."
Your AVI to VCD slow conversion may have been due to inefficient VCD conversion software, maximizing the number of passes, or some other reason.
As someone already mentioned, there really aren't any defenses... that's why most are settling.
However, for those who may not have actually done it (maybe had an open wireless connection, or the neighbor kid that you kindly let borrow your computer from time to time, etc.), it must be quite disheartening:
From the article:
>>>>> Still, the California consultant who recently agreed to pay the largest settlement in any of the lawsuits, $11,000, urged Internet users not to take solace in rare procedural victories.
"It scares me," Plank said. "For anyone fighting any of these lawsuits -- unless they have nothing to lose -- the only thing to do is settle. You have no power against these people."
Fine, fine fine. Not "glosses over," then. I should have said: "Makes light of." My point was simply that he discounted the value differential between the two products simply because his example purchaser already had an HDTV satellite box.
Even if you have an HDTV satellite box, having a built-in HDTV OTA tuner has value. (E.g., discontinuing satellite service gets rid of your HDTV locals with most satellite providers; alternatively he might want the ability to tune one signal with the Sat box and watch OTA with his built-in tuner; etc.).
For example, the Panasonic 42" plasma had a "consumer" and an "industrial" version. However, the article pointed out that the industrial version was $350 lower than the consumer version while glossing over the fact that the industrial version lacked an HDTV tuner, and built-in speakers. Clearly, the addition of those items justifies some increase, and 2-400 is reasonable given the cost of HDTV tuners as separate components.
In addition, he neglected to mention the difference in warranty duration (and the difference in customer service you might expect between a "name" brand such as RCA and a "generic" such as Coby).
An interesting idea, indeed, but California, beholden to the entertainment lobby, would never attempt such a thing. One additional problem would be the extremely high cost of valuing all of the copyrights... there aren't enough accountants to even handle all that work I would bet.
Also, IP is, to a certain extent, taxed ("maintentance fees" for patents, etc.) but those fees are not proportional to the perceived value of the underlying IP.
The olympics will, in fact, be this year, but unfortunately NBC, in their infinite [lack of] wisdom, has decided to not only show much of the games tape-delayed, but to show *ALL* HD coverage *AT LEAST* 24 hours delayed (so as not to detract from their pre-packaged schmaltzy prime-time programming).
Blah. NBC Sports died long ago... noone told NBC, unfortunately.