I dunno, considering the importance/popularity of the IBM PC, the origins of the convention seem clear. Once the clones took over, you couldn't call it Mac vs IBM any more, and you need a name for that class of computer... Really, I can't remember the last time (if ever) I saw "PC" used to mean "personal computer" generally.
1) A cola is exactly the same product as Coke and Pepsi, so you are clearly in the same market. SparkFun does not produce computers. The better analogy would be something along the lines of selling cookies or some other product in the "food products" but not "drinks" realm.
2) Coke and Pepsi are both fairly unique words and don't have strong associations with drinks or foods other than by virtue of the trademarked product names. It'd be extremely difficult to come up with a convincingly legitimate reason to name a beverage something phonetically similar to these trademarks. Perhaps if it's derived from Coca or coal byproducts... "Spark" is an ordinary English word with very obvious connections to electronics. If you decide to use a term like that as a trademark, well, sorry you will have a much narrower trademark claim.
Except that you'd need to guarantee that the LHC would discover something the universe didn't "want" *unless* that specific improbable event occurs. As long as there are other ways to keep the secret, there's no need for the universe to play your silly game. "Heads, heads, heads, tail, oh shit earthquake" would work just as well.
There are some problems with his proposal, as outlined elsewhere in the thread, but this is not one of them. The hash is tied to the vote, not to the voter. If the voter does not want to be identifiable in any way, he simply burns his hash stub.
And, well, if you're not already a doctor or a trained scientist familiar with the literature, you probably should skip trying to listen to the data and listen to your doctor.
To be fair, it took ~1 hour to install on my shiny new macbook under Bootcamp, and that included installing the Apple drivers. It "works" modulo the fact that the multitouch drivers suck serious ass, but that's actually not MS's fault...
The 911 systems in California are hopelessly overwhelmed, and it's especially bad for cell phones since they have the extra layers of routing. When I took First Aid training, the first thing they told us was to call 911 with a land line if at all possible.
The ONLY way around this is to go to your boss, show him the scribbles, walk away and then email him asking if the company wants them. If he responds no, print the email and keep it with said novel. THEN you are safe.
Assuming your boss has a legal authority to make that decision for the company. You will probably get some protection from having his permission, but I wouldn't count out the scenario where your boss gets fired for exceeding his authority AND you lose rights anyway.
Oops, left out a clause: "Under current law in order to exercise exactly the same rights with a DRM-protected medium with a book you require assistance from the manufacturer."
(stupid #@$@#% required delay between posts... argh)
You can make copies of pages of books for personal use;
Because books aren't protected by DRM, not because they're books.
And the presence of DRM on the DVD is the whole point! Under current law in order to exercise exactly the same rights with a DRM-protected medium as with a book. They have taken away your ability to take prudent steps to protect yourself. It's not really asking for something extra.
That said, I don't entirely agree that the manufacturers owe this to buyers. You know you're getting fucked over when you buy the DVD, it's up to you whether it's still worth it. Still, it's utterly ridiculous that the law is in its current state. I wish more people had the sense not to encourage the assholes selling this crap (or to vote for the assholes who pass these laws), but there's not a whole lot you can do besides trying to educate people and doing the right thing for yourself.
In my experience, people would probably understand "toilet" immediately, and it does occasionally appear on signs, but it isn't used very often in speech. It's the whole American squeamishness-- a euphemism for the toilet itself is strongly preferred.
I suspect the failed communication was due to pronunciation rather than vocabulary. While "loo" and especially "WC" are very rare terms over here, "bathroom" is certainly the primary, standard term for almost everyone I know. Public bathrooms are typically called restrooms, but I'd be totally shocked to find someone who called their bathroom at home a restroom.
However, I could completely imagine someone with a moderate or thick British accent having a lot of trouble communicating with someone in the US. There are a lot of regional US accents that bear little resemblance to some of the British speech patterns, and a lot of people don't get outside their region very often.
Such a framework seems like a very bad idea. For one thing, on the scale of the US such a thing would be unworkable. But even if you scale it to a manageable size, I don't think it's appropriate. Dictating that level of control over the classroom in a bureaucratic fashion works in something of a least common denominator fashion in my experience. General guidelines are perhaps ok, but the best education experiences I've had were almost completely unrelated to the various requirements that are handed down from above.
As for the judgment of "perfectly appropriate for his/her age," it's not always clear cut. Reasonable people may disagree about such books as 1984; it certainly has some content that some people would judge differently even independent of political considerations. The OP, IIRC, was a bit vague about the age at which the permission was asked; without knowing that it's hard to put the request in context. In any event, and for any book, I don't see how there's possibly any problem with a teacher asking the parent if he/she is comfortable with a suggestion. I'd MUCH prefer this to having some politicians determine a list of age appropriate books.
All that said, I'm curious why you support a national syllabus.
I disagree almost completely. It sounds like you're urging a bureaucratic solution whereby there's no direct contact between teachers and parents. Is that really what you want? I sure as hell don't. Increased contact between parents and teachers is exactly what we want; that way there's less disconnect between classroom and home learning, and really that's how it should be.
I'm all in favor of kids reading freely, but there are certainly issues about appropriateness of particular books to particular age groups. When a question arises, I think running it by the parent is a better solution than consulting a politician or set of regulations to determine whether a book is appropriate.
The law certainly seems to give human creativity special status. There's a lot of fuzziness in the definitions of virtually all copyright and patent rules that needs to be filled in.
Without delving deeply into philosophical matters, my problem with their claim (or at least one of my problems with it, I probably have more but I'm not thinking too hard) is that it disregards the role played by the person who triggers the query in the production of the output. They've put together a complex system of rules for combining data based on the input from the end user. For any given input and database, the output is arrived at by following a rigid set of steps. Sure, you may get a computation that's novel, but it doesn't sit right to claim that because they assembled the framework for answering it, they claim the sole copyright on that output. If my experience in science and engineering has taught me anything it's that asking the right questions is often the more important part of the (technical) creative process.
Looking at it this way, we naturally assign copyright over software to the guy who wrote the source code. We don't assign the copyright of the binary to the compiler author or the compiler. I still don't see why this program is any different. If Wolfram controlled the whole process -- software and input -- then sure, but that's not the case here.
It's no more or less creative than what the Alpha software is doing. Both take an input from a human, apply some transformations to that, combine it with a library of other information, and produce something new is output.
IMO the Alpha claim is totally bogus. There was creativity in writing the software, and anything it outputs that is hard coded is possibly eligible for copyright protection (i.e., a template phrasing for an answer), but claiming each output separately is ridiculous.
Well, exactly -- the reason it requires more testing/inspection is that it's less reliable. You can do it, and I've done it plenty of times on prototypes. But it's just not worth it in quantities. Hence my statement.
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I dunno, considering the importance/popularity of the IBM PC, the origins of the convention seem clear. Once the clones took over, you couldn't call it Mac vs IBM any more, and you need a name for that class of computer... Really, I can't remember the last time (if ever) I saw "PC" used to mean "personal computer" generally.
(at least) two problems:
1) A cola is exactly the same product as Coke and Pepsi, so you are clearly in the same market. SparkFun does not produce computers. The better analogy would be something along the lines of selling cookies or some other product in the "food products" but not "drinks" realm.
2) Coke and Pepsi are both fairly unique words and don't have strong associations with drinks or foods other than by virtue of the trademarked product names. It'd be extremely difficult to come up with a convincingly legitimate reason to name a beverage something phonetically similar to these trademarks. Perhaps if it's derived from Coca or coal byproducts... "Spark" is an ordinary English word with very obvious connections to electronics. If you decide to use a term like that as a trademark, well, sorry you will have a much narrower trademark claim.
Except that you'd need to guarantee that the LHC would discover something the universe didn't "want" *unless* that specific improbable event occurs. As long as there are other ways to keep the secret, there's no need for the universe to play your silly game. "Heads, heads, heads, tail, oh shit earthquake" would work just as well.
There are some problems with his proposal, as outlined elsewhere in the thread, but this is not one of them. The hash is tied to the vote, not to the voter. If the voter does not want to be identifiable in any way, he simply burns his hash stub.
That's a really decent idea.
Yes, really decent. Extremely adequate. Fantastically mediocre.
...but apparently not enough to know how much easier that is said than done.
And, well, if you're not already a doctor or a trained scientist familiar with the literature, you probably should skip trying to listen to the data and listen to your doctor.
* Matte screen w/ WXGA+ LED backlight (new Macbook Pros are all glossy)
Not any more. Matte is available on 15" and 17" at this point.
To be fair, it took ~1 hour to install on my shiny new macbook under Bootcamp, and that included installing the Apple drivers. It "works" modulo the fact that the multitouch drivers suck serious ass, but that's actually not MS's fault...
Dude, fungi != yeast.
The 911 systems in California are hopelessly overwhelmed, and it's especially bad for cell phones since they have the extra layers of routing. When I took First Aid training, the first thing they told us was to call 911 with a land line if at all possible.
The ONLY way around this is to go to your boss, show him the scribbles, walk away and then email him asking if the company wants them. If he responds no, print the email and keep it with said novel. THEN you are safe.
Assuming your boss has a legal authority to make that decision for the company. You will probably get some protection from having his permission, but I wouldn't count out the scenario where your boss gets fired for exceeding his authority AND you lose rights anyway.
No shit! But "the law does not require X" is hardly an argument against "the law should require X," now is it?
Oops, left out a clause:
"Under current law in order to exercise exactly the same rights with a DRM-protected medium with a book you require assistance from the manufacturer."
(stupid #@$@#% required delay between posts... argh)
You can make copies of pages of books for personal use;
Because books aren't protected by DRM, not because they're books.
And the presence of DRM on the DVD is the whole point! Under current law in order to exercise exactly the same rights with a DRM-protected medium as with a book. They have taken away your ability to take prudent steps to protect yourself. It's not really asking for something extra.
That said, I don't entirely agree that the manufacturers owe this to buyers. You know you're getting fucked over when you buy the DVD, it's up to you whether it's still worth it. Still, it's utterly ridiculous that the law is in its current state. I wish more people had the sense not to encourage the assholes selling this crap (or to vote for the assholes who pass these laws), but there's not a whole lot you can do besides trying to educate people and doing the right thing for yourself.
In my experience, people would probably understand "toilet" immediately, and it does occasionally appear on signs, but it isn't used very often in speech. It's the whole American squeamishness-- a euphemism for the toilet itself is strongly preferred.
:-)
I did try to be even-handed and referred to both British and American modes of speech as "accents"...
I suspect the failed communication was due to pronunciation rather than vocabulary. While "loo" and especially "WC" are very rare terms over here, "bathroom" is certainly the primary, standard term for almost everyone I know. Public bathrooms are typically called restrooms, but I'd be totally shocked to find someone who called their bathroom at home a restroom.
However, I could completely imagine someone with a moderate or thick British accent having a lot of trouble communicating with someone in the US. There are a lot of regional US accents that bear little resemblance to some of the British speech patterns, and a lot of people don't get outside their region very often.
Why do you like a national syllabus?
Such a framework seems like a very bad idea. For one thing, on the scale of the US such a thing would be unworkable. But even if you scale it to a manageable size, I don't think it's appropriate. Dictating that level of control over the classroom in a bureaucratic fashion works in something of a least common denominator fashion in my experience. General guidelines are perhaps ok, but the best education experiences I've had were almost completely unrelated to the various requirements that are handed down from above.
As for the judgment of "perfectly appropriate for his/her age," it's not always clear cut. Reasonable people may disagree about such books as 1984; it certainly has some content that some people would judge differently even independent of political considerations. The OP, IIRC, was a bit vague about the age at which the permission was asked; without knowing that it's hard to put the request in context. In any event, and for any book, I don't see how there's possibly any problem with a teacher asking the parent if he/she is comfortable with a suggestion. I'd MUCH prefer this to having some politicians determine a list of age appropriate books.
All that said, I'm curious why you support a national syllabus.
I disagree almost completely. It sounds like you're urging a bureaucratic solution whereby there's no direct contact between teachers and parents. Is that really what you want? I sure as hell don't. Increased contact between parents and teachers is exactly what we want; that way there's less disconnect between classroom and home learning, and really that's how it should be.
I'm all in favor of kids reading freely, but there are certainly issues about appropriateness of particular books to particular age groups. When a question arises, I think running it by the parent is a better solution than consulting a politician or set of regulations to determine whether a book is appropriate.
The law certainly seems to give human creativity special status. There's a lot of fuzziness in the definitions of virtually all copyright and patent rules that needs to be filled in.
Without delving deeply into philosophical matters, my problem with their claim (or at least one of my problems with it, I probably have more but I'm not thinking too hard) is that it disregards the role played by the person who triggers the query in the production of the output. They've put together a complex system of rules for combining data based on the input from the end user. For any given input and database, the output is arrived at by following a rigid set of steps. Sure, you may get a computation that's novel, but it doesn't sit right to claim that because they assembled the framework for answering it, they claim the sole copyright on that output. If my experience in science and engineering has taught me anything it's that asking the right questions is often the more important part of the (technical) creative process.
Looking at it this way, we naturally assign copyright over software to the guy who wrote the source code. We don't assign the copyright of the binary to the compiler author or the compiler. I still don't see why this program is any different. If Wolfram controlled the whole process -- software and input -- then sure, but that's not the case here.
It's no more or less creative than what the Alpha software is doing. Both take an input from a human, apply some transformations to that, combine it with a library of other information, and produce something new is output.
IMO the Alpha claim is totally bogus. There was creativity in writing the software, and anything it outputs that is hard coded is possibly eligible for copyright protection (i.e., a template phrasing for an answer), but claiming each output separately is ridiculous.
Well, exactly -- the reason it requires more testing/inspection is that it's less reliable. You can do it, and I've done it plenty of times on prototypes. But it's just not worth it in quantities. Hence my statement.
Hopefully never. The reliability of the joints is borderline good enough for a prototype, but not even close to what you need for serious production.
Dogmatic, maybe...
They're pragmatic in some ways, and profoundly ideologically pure in others.