Umm..why not give the voter 2 copies of a paper receipt like you get for credit cards so both copies are printed at once, and the voter keeps one copy and place the other copy in a ballot box for checking later on?
So, Mr. AC meta-troller. Are you a friend of twitter? Are you twitter? Are you just some random person that wanted to annoy twitter? It doesn't matter. I just noticed your post here for the first time, and it's damn funny. And ironic, but I'm betting that you know that. And it's real irony, not fake Alanis irony. Little gems like this are why I like reading/.
It's a quote from the song by alanis morissette called "Ironic", which (ironically) is filled with a bunch of examples that are unfortunate but not ironic.
I have wondered if that song is supposed to work on some meta-level where the whole song is ironic because it's filled with things that aren't ironic. I think that's giving her too much credit, but you never know...
came up to me in office hours yesterday telling me how he just bought a laptop, but didn't get an OS on it. He figured he would just "borrow" a copy of Windows from a friend and he couldn't get it to install on his laptop for some reason. It kept rebooting and it wouldn't accept the Windows disk. He came to me looking for help, but I didn't help him. Instead, I told him that I wouldn't help him with installing it because I don't like to help people to copy things illegally, and boy did he get pissed and storm away. He deserves it, however since he is a CS major, and although I can understand that people are greedy, lazy fucks who don't want to pay for anything they can get for free, you shouldn't pirate software if you're a CS major. That's just ignorant and makes me hope that he'll flunk out of CS (not that I would or could do it intentionally because of how uniform grades are determined), but just because he doesn't get where the money comes from that he will pay his rent some day when he gets a job. So yeah, MS has a problem, but I can't believe people wouldn't know if their Windows is legal or not. Generally it comes pre-installed by a big company, or they go to a store and buy it in a nice shiny box. Shrug.
You're not really making sense, and you're still avoiding the central questions that I asked you. Going to your previous post above the parent, are you saying that software is not the result of creative, abstract thought processes?
Writing a piece of software is like writing the solution to a word problem: a math problem with numbers and symbols that represent real-world values. All software could be written and run on paper very slowly, and writing the solution to a math problem you don't know how to solve and where there's no simple formula you plug things into is the result of a creative, abstract thought process. Granted, if you know the formula and you plug in numbers, that's not terribly creative, but coming up with the formula to use is creative. So, software is also the result of creative, abstract thought processes. In fact, the kinds of software that require those creative processes are new algorithms, which are the kinds of things you want patented.
I still don't understand why you don't answer the question about whether or not you can be sued for patent infringement for recording and distributing the output of a patented music box. (And btw, I just want your opinion. I don't expect you to be a patent attorney who knows the real correct answer.) Creativity has nothing to do with whether or not a string of bits giving instructions to a machine to make it carry out a process is patentable or not. Or, are you saying that there are certain kinds of strings of bits that give instructions to machines to carry out processes that are covered by patent protection because the creator thought certain ways and other strings of bits are exempt because the creator thought in other ways?
Since you're hung up on this whole creativity thing, do you program? I assume you must, but maybe you're just grinding out boring details repeatedly for problems you know how to solve and that makes software seem uncreative. That's like plugging in numbers into a math formula you know, not coming up with a new formula. There are programs that require creativity to write, and like I said above, those are exactly the kinds of programs that should be covered by patents if you like software patents.
I go with what my sister told me. She is a musician who also programs and she's told me that programming is like writing music. It also feels very creative to me, but I don't do much else besides write sometimes. I don't understand your point about the lava lamp person, and you totally ignored the question about whether or not a recording is a software implementation of a music box or not.
You can patent a music box. If you record the sounds coming out of the music box and make copies on CDs of those recordings and sell them, can you get sued for patent infringement for making "a software implementation of a music box"?
If yes, then we can patent music and movies and books and everything else that's under the domain of copyright because it IS possible to make a piece of hardware that has only one book or movie or song on it. If no, then software patents don't make sense either.
And, I WILL support software patents strongly if they allow me to get patents on music and movies and books and so forth, because then I will know that the courts understand that they're allowing patents on expressions of abstract thought.
And if that's how they want to roll, that's fine by me. I just don't like it when I see them making an arbitrary distinction between code and data, because I see a CD as a set of instructions that causes a CD player to carry out a process, just as a computer carries out a process by running software. And, I believe that a new piece of music is in fact novel, nonobvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art of making music, and it's useful as it bring enjoyment or other emotions to people.
even though I saw the original versions as a child and bought all those damn toys.:P I think it's nice that he gets to refactor his movies to make them the way he wants.
It would seem that you have adopted someting of a Luddite mentality. It is people such as yourself which impede technical progress. Subscription based software delivery via high-speed data pipes *is* the future.
I doubt there are any true "Luddites" on slashdot. Opposing some kinds of technology does not make you a Luddite. Opposing all kinds of technology does. There are very few technological things that/. readers oppose en masse, and perhaps the reason those things are opposed is that advancing those few bad technologies makes advancing the rest of the good ones bad. IMO the DRM people are more the Luddites since they essentially need to make computers illegal to protect their content.
Of course, we DO all know that you can't really tell what the (N+1)st term of a sequence is by looking at the first N terms right? And wouldn't it be interesting if there was another less obvious interpretation of those numbers that sent you to another website where the real applications are supposed to go? I don't have time to think about this this afternoon, but I will probably look at it later tonight. If there's another less obvious answer that someone finds that works, I will be really impressed.
"I'm not trying to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt," Ballmer said
He's technically correct. When you say you're "trying" to do something, it normally means that you're attempting it, but you're not sure if it's going to work, or at least that you haven't done it yet. He has already successfully spread FUD, and he knows it, so he really isn't trying to do it anymore.
The sun, or any objects in space, or any volume of space. However, I do claim a sphere of radius exactly AU/(e*PI) centered on the center of the sun, and I would appreciate you all paying me the reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing fee that I'm due so you can make use of the sunlight that passes through my property.
Slashdot Mirror
He grabbed that Elite's ass and rode it all the way home...
Umm..why not give the voter 2 copies of a paper receipt like you get for credit cards so both copies are printed at once, and the voter keeps one copy and place the other copy in a ballot box for checking later on?
So, Mr. AC meta-troller. Are you a friend of twitter? Are you twitter? Are you just some random person that wanted to annoy twitter? It doesn't matter. I just noticed your post here for the first time, and it's damn funny. And ironic, but I'm betting that you know that. And it's real irony, not fake Alanis irony. Little gems like this are why I like reading /.
these people need to step back for a moment and ask themselves: "What Would Jesus Do?"
To any EA executive that happens to read this, I have a good challenge for you:
Haha funny. Well, sort of.
A Covenant without a Sword is a lot easier to kill.
Unless it's invisible.
the patent would be for writing literature works over a network of digital computers. THEN YOU SUE SLASHDOT!
Literature: creative writing of recognized artistic value
I think slashdot's safe.
It's a quote from the song by alanis morissette called "Ironic", which (ironically) is filled with a bunch of examples that are unfortunate but not ironic.
I have wondered if that song is supposed to work on some meta-level where the whole song is ironic because it's filled with things that aren't ironic. I think that's giving her too much credit, but you never know...
came up to me in office hours yesterday telling me how he just bought a laptop, but didn't get an OS on it. He figured he would just "borrow" a copy of Windows from a friend and he couldn't get it to install on his laptop for some reason. It kept rebooting and it wouldn't accept the Windows disk. He came to me looking for help, but I didn't help him. Instead, I told him that I wouldn't help him with installing it because I don't like to help people to copy things illegally, and boy did he get pissed and storm away. He deserves it, however since he is a CS major, and although I can understand that people are greedy, lazy fucks who don't want to pay for anything they can get for free, you shouldn't pirate software if you're a CS major. That's just ignorant and makes me hope that he'll flunk out of CS (not that I would or could do it intentionally because of how uniform grades are determined), but just because he doesn't get where the money comes from that he will pay his rent some day when he gets a job. So yeah, MS has a problem, but I can't believe people wouldn't know if their Windows is legal or not. Generally it comes pre-installed by a big company, or they go to a store and buy it in a nice shiny box. Shrug.
Irony, the most sublime of the humors.
Almost like a black fly in your Chardonnay...
I think you mean lawn tennis, old chap. Real tennis is a far superior game.
Oh lord, spare me. I'll bet you think "football" is played by kicking a spherical ball into little nets, too.
I know Folorida pissed some higher being off, Butwhat did the state of washington do ?
/. karma whoring, I admit it. Moderate accordingly.)
Maybe This?
(OK this post is blatant !MS flamebait
There are 11 kinds of people in the world: Those who can count in binary, and those who can't.
You're not really making sense, and you're still avoiding the central questions that I asked you. Going to your previous post above the parent, are you saying that software is not the result of creative, abstract thought processes?
Writing a piece of software is like writing the solution to a word problem: a math problem with numbers and symbols that represent real-world values. All software could be written and run on paper very slowly, and writing the solution to a math problem you don't know how to solve and where there's no simple formula you plug things into is the result of a creative, abstract thought process. Granted, if you know the formula and you plug in numbers, that's not terribly creative, but coming up with the formula to use is creative. So, software is also the result of creative, abstract thought processes. In fact, the kinds of software that require those creative processes are new algorithms, which are the kinds of things you want patented.
I still don't understand why you don't answer the question about whether or not you can be sued for patent infringement for recording and distributing the output of a patented music box. (And btw, I just want your opinion. I don't expect you to be a patent attorney who knows the real correct answer.)
Creativity has nothing to do with whether or not a string of bits giving instructions to a machine to make it carry out a process is patentable or not. Or, are you saying that there are certain kinds of strings of bits that give instructions to machines to carry out processes that are covered by patent protection because the creator thought certain ways and other strings of bits are exempt because the creator thought in other ways?
Since you're hung up on this whole creativity thing, do you program? I assume you must, but maybe you're just grinding out boring details repeatedly for problems you know how to solve and that makes software seem uncreative. That's like plugging in numbers into a math formula you know, not coming up with a new formula. There are programs that require creativity to write, and like I said above, those are exactly the kinds of programs that should be covered by patents if you like software patents.
I go with what my sister told me. She is a musician who also programs and she's told me that programming is like writing music. It also feels very creative to me, but I don't do much else besides write sometimes. I don't understand your point about the lava lamp person, and you totally ignored the question about whether or not a recording is a software implementation of a music box or not.
You can patent a music box. If you record the sounds coming out of the music box and make copies on CDs of those recordings and sell them, can you get sued for patent infringement for making "a software implementation of a music box"?
If yes, then we can patent music and movies and books and everything else that's under the domain of copyright because it IS possible to make a piece of hardware that has only one book or movie or song on it. If no, then software patents don't make sense either.
And, I WILL support software patents strongly if they allow me to get patents on music and movies and books and so forth, because then I will know that the courts understand that they're allowing patents on expressions of abstract thought.
And if that's how they want to roll, that's fine by me. I just don't like it when I see them making an arbitrary distinction between code and data, because I see a CD as a set of instructions that causes a CD player to carry out a process, just as a computer carries out a process by running software. And, I believe that a new piece of music is in fact novel, nonobvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art of making music, and it's useful as it bring enjoyment or other emotions to people.
SCO is dying....blah blah blah blah blah
Ok, I'll grant you that. There are people who use computers, but like to "use them the old-fashioned way, dagnabbit!".
even though I saw the original versions as a child and bought all those damn toys. :P I think it's nice that he gets to refactor his movies to make them the way he wants.
It would seem that you
/. readers oppose en masse, and perhaps the reason those things are opposed is that advancing those few bad technologies makes advancing the rest of the good ones bad. IMO the DRM people are more the Luddites since they essentially need to make computers illegal to protect their content.
have adopted someting of a Luddite mentality. It
is people such as yourself which impede technical
progress. Subscription based software delivery
via high-speed data pipes *is* the future.
I doubt there are any true "Luddites" on slashdot. Opposing some kinds of technology does not make you a Luddite. Opposing all kinds of technology does. There are very few technological things that
Of course, we DO all know that you can't really tell what the (N+1)st term of a sequence is by looking at the first N terms right? And wouldn't it be interesting if there was another less obvious interpretation of those numbers that sent you to another website where the real applications are supposed to go? I don't have time to think about this this afternoon, but I will probably look at it later tonight. If there's another less obvious answer that someone finds that works, I will be really impressed.
11. Duke Nukem Forever
Nice troll.
"I'm not trying to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt," Ballmer said
He's technically correct. When you say you're "trying" to do something, it normally means that you're attempting it, but you're not sure if it's going to work, or at least that you haven't done it yet. He has already successfully spread FUD, and he knows it, so he really isn't trying to do it anymore.
Seriously, what sort of idiot would think that we'd make energy by splitting up water and then recombining it?
Neo.
The sun, or any objects in space, or any volume of space. However, I do claim a sphere of radius exactly AU/(e*PI) centered on the center of the sun, and I would appreciate you all paying me the reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing fee that I'm due so you can make use of the sunlight that passes through my property.