Can we just make a rule that any GPL'ed code you post on the internet doesn't belong to you anymore? Anyone with any sense already figured that out a decade ago anyway.
About a year ago I came across this paper while looking into a Navy solicitation for, essentially, the Redshift/F.lux programs embedded into sailors' berth lights. Their focus was not only to help them get to sleep, but help them wake up (or more generally, help adjust to ever-changing shift times).
Pawalled unfortunately, and I don't have access at home, but the gist is that blue light in the band 446-477nm encourages the "it's daytime!" melatonin response (the effect peaks around 464nm)
Some upshots: 1) It's real, and it's probably not just your computer screen. 2) Blue-light regulation could conceivably be integrated into house lights, especially if in some years LED luminaires become feasible enough to replace CFLs. 3) The effect appears to work both ways - adding some extra blue light in the mornings could conceivably help you become alert faster. 4) Some off-the-shelf LEDs produce light very close to this peak (look for "dental blue", ~460nm, used for curing certain dental adhesives). You could hack together your own active light gadgets, e.g. blue-light specs to wear on trips to reduce jetlag.
Er, they already have determined that light (specifically, around 464nm) of x lumens triggers a human circadian response... if your insert-device-here hits your eyes with that many lumens in the band of interest, there is no need to speculate wildly. To use the obligatory car analogy, you're suggesting:
"Sure, studies have conclusively proven that getting run over by a car causes death. But they never specifically tested whether getting run over by *blue* cars causes death. To claim so would be wild speculation..."
Also - I too doubt there is enough light from gadget LEDs to have any significant effect, but manufacturers' craze to put a mega-brightness blue LED in everything can't help. According to http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/short/21/16/6405">this paper (paywalled, alas), circadian sensitivity to light follows a relatively sharp band that peaks out around 464nm, which just happens to be around the wavelength many of these LEDs come in at.
Heh. It wasn't until I broke my Motorola E815 skiing and had to fix it that I discovered there was a tiny light sensor hidden under one of the little translucent bumpers that was ostensibly to keep the buttons from scratching the screen. For about a year I had assumed it was a loose connection or minor firmware bug that was causing the number pad backlight to decide at random whether to engage or not when the phone was opened. I guess it just depended where my thumb was when opening it.
Since the satellite runs in 'bent pipe' mode, amplifying wide bands of RF that are beamed up to it
Hunh... did you say that the frontend of this crashed bird will blindly amplify and rebroadcast any signal that hits it? What did you say its coordinates are again?
It's worse than that... not just a patent, but an entire portfolio around this thing. And the who third-world countries angle is a joke as well. According to their description of the cells:
it starts with a special glass fiber doped with "rare-earth frequency converters", wrapped in a layer of ITO (see earlier posts regarding the price of indium and manufacturability), in turn wrapped in the dye layer and "external reflector and contact" (not sure if this part is also meant to be optically clear), plus "a number of proprietary components" not shown in the simplified diagram. IOW, guess who's not making these in their basements?
(Plus, if you've ever smashed a pokeberry in the sun, and seen for how long it remains pokeberry-colored...)
Sadly, what you said is 20% funny and 80% true. But regardless of what claims (some of which may be invalid and unenforceable, depending on where you live) are made in the EULA or what disclaimers are presented in the warranty statement, some of the recent Sony crap may be actionable if the unit is still under warranty. For example, there are implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for purpose, which in most US states cannot be disclaimed. Somewhat confusingly, a merchantable good is one which is fit for the (ordinary) purpose for which it is sold, and conforms to customary expectations for this good or class of goods. For example, it is a customary expectation that a car sold by a dealership is street-legal, or that a device sold as a video game console plays video games. Firmware lockouts that render the device as-sold unable to play some games sold as compatible would likely run afoul of this.
Likewise, the warranty of "fitness for a particular purpose" (sometimes just called fitness for purpose) warrants the good as fit for a particular purpose, known to the seller, that the buyer intends to use it for, even if it is not the primary or customary use of this good. Sony may be considered "aware" of buyers' use of the console for running Linux by virtue of product packaging an manuals which specifically mention this use, even if the unit is primarily sold as a "video game console".
Plus, depending on the size/wattage of the LED in question, the tiny 1/16W pot you use as A/D input* PLUS microcontroller and transistor may well be cheaper than a beefy pot that can handle the LED current. (And now that you have the microcontroller in the loop, you can make it do tricks such as visually "linear" (log current) output without log pots, buss them, remotely control, and make them reactive to their environment for free/cheap as well.)
You'd be amazed how often such 'backward' designs are found in manufacturing, because they really are better or cheaper or more reliable. (Case in point, I'd rather have a packaged [rotary encoder + micro + digitally controlled resistor] vs. a scratchy 'vintage' analog pot in my guitar anyday.)
* of course, a real production engineer might forgo the A/D entirely and use software to measure the pot via RC time constant:-)
Mod points if I had 'em. If Boston instituted/enforced a rule that you couldn't enter the intersection on green for a left turn, they would have to outlaw left turns outright to avoid complete gridlock (dedicated left-turn lanes on otherwise single-lane-per-direction roads are rare here). Allowing to enter the intersection ensures that at least one car can move per light cycle.
No, the article was quite clear: they retrieved cached copies of the emails from the hard drive, most likely forensically (probably Firefox/Flash/etc.'s cache). The case was about reasonable expectation of privacy vs. the wording of the company policy. Notice the article quotes all these corporate lawyers having a wet dream about the ruling telling them how to word their policies in the future. You're right in that the article does not specify whether the 'company-loaned' laptops could be taken home, or whether it was in this particular case (e.g. whether the encrypted emails passed through her employer's internet connection, her home connection, the coffeeshop, etc.)
that the product is not the only piece of IP being steamrollered? As late as Nov. 09, posts on http://icontrolpad.com/ have referred to the product under the shortened name 'iPad' (or Ipad, or ipad). Apple's iPad announcement probably put a formal stop to that (Jan 2010?)
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Didn't work when I told the RIAA that my Enter Sandman.mp3 was just a very large constant. :-(
Can we just make a rule that any GPL'ed code you post on the internet doesn't belong to you anymore? Anyone with any sense already figured that out a decade ago anyway.
Fixed that for ya.
I can, but not as a preposition. "Threee bluescreens in three hours; clearly something is afuck in my registry."
Wait, I have it!
"Upon opening the door, he was shocked to see his wife sitting afuck the mailman." Kind of like "atop" or "astraddle", but a bit more specific.
About a year ago I came across this paper while looking into a Navy solicitation for, essentially, the Redshift/F.lux programs embedded into sailors' berth lights. Their focus was not only to help them get to sleep, but help them wake up (or more generally, help adjust to ever-changing shift times).
Action Spectrum for Melatonin Regulation in Humans: Evidence for a Novel Circadian Photoreceptor
Pawalled unfortunately, and I don't have access at home, but the gist is that blue light in the band 446-477nm encourages the "it's daytime!" melatonin response (the effect peaks around 464nm)
Some upshots:
1) It's real, and it's probably not just your computer screen.
2) Blue-light regulation could conceivably be integrated into house lights, especially if in some years LED luminaires become feasible enough to replace CFLs.
3) The effect appears to work both ways - adding some extra blue light in the mornings could conceivably help you become alert faster.
4) Some off-the-shelf LEDs produce light very close to this peak (look for "dental blue", ~460nm, used for curing certain dental adhesives). You could hack together your own active light gadgets, e.g. blue-light specs to wear on trips to reduce jetlag.
Er, they already have determined that light (specifically, around 464nm) of x lumens triggers a human circadian response... if your insert-device-here hits your eyes with that many lumens in the band of interest, there is no need to speculate wildly. To use the obligatory car analogy, you're suggesting:
"Sure, studies have conclusively proven that getting run over by a car causes death. But they never specifically tested whether getting run over by *blue* cars causes death. To claim so would be wild speculation..."
Wow! Impressive. I thought it was only supposed to work on humans. :-)
Also - I too doubt there is enough light from gadget LEDs to have any significant effect, but manufacturers' craze to put a mega-brightness blue LED in everything can't help. According to http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/short/21/16/6405">this paper (paywalled, alas), circadian sensitivity to light follows a relatively sharp band that peaks out around 464nm, which just happens to be around the wavelength many of these LEDs come in at.
Heh. It wasn't until I broke my Motorola E815 skiing and had to fix it that I discovered there was a tiny light sensor hidden under one of the little translucent bumpers that was ostensibly to keep the buttons from scratching the screen. For about a year I had assumed it was a loose connection or minor firmware bug that was causing the number pad backlight to decide at random whether to engage or not when the phone was opened. I guess it just depended where my thumb was when opening it.
Since the satellite runs in 'bent pipe' mode, amplifying wide bands of RF that are beamed up to it
Hunh... did you say that the frontend of this crashed bird will blindly amplify and rebroadcast any signal that hits it? What did you say its coordinates are again?
Is that like a battle-axe?
It's worse than that... not just a patent, but an entire portfolio around this thing. And the who third-world countries angle is a joke as well. According to their description of the cells:
http://www.fibercellinc.com/Technology.html
it starts with a special glass fiber doped with "rare-earth frequency converters", wrapped in a layer of ITO (see earlier posts regarding the price of indium and manufacturability), in turn wrapped in the dye layer and "external reflector and contact" (not sure if this part is also meant to be optically clear), plus "a number of proprietary components" not shown in the simplified diagram. IOW, guess who's not making these in their basements?
(Plus, if you've ever smashed a pokeberry in the sun, and seen for how long it remains pokeberry-colored...)
Sadly, what you said is 20% funny and 80% true. But regardless of what claims (some of which may be invalid and unenforceable, depending on where you live) are made in the EULA or what disclaimers are presented in the warranty statement, some of the recent Sony crap may be actionable if the unit is still under warranty. For example, there are implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for purpose, which in most US states cannot be disclaimed. Somewhat confusingly, a merchantable good is one which is fit for the (ordinary) purpose for which it is sold, and conforms to customary expectations for this good or class of goods. For example, it is a customary expectation that a car sold by a dealership is street-legal, or that a device sold as a video game console plays video games. Firmware lockouts that render the device as-sold unable to play some games sold as compatible would likely run afoul of this.
Likewise, the warranty of "fitness for a particular purpose" (sometimes just called fitness for purpose) warrants the good as fit for a particular purpose, known to the seller, that the buyer intends to use it for, even if it is not the primary or customary use of this good. Sony may be considered "aware" of buyers' use of the console for running Linux by virtue of product packaging an manuals which specifically mention this use, even if the unit is primarily sold as a "video game console".
No, she only sparkles. And swears uncontrollably.
Sorry, I don't think 'fraud' was the economic model the OP wanted them to embrace.
I am just a poor boy, though my story's seldom told...
Plus, depending on the size/wattage of the LED in question, the tiny 1/16W pot you use as A/D input* PLUS microcontroller and transistor may well be cheaper than a beefy pot that can handle the LED current. (And now that you have the microcontroller in the loop, you can make it do tricks such as visually "linear" (log current) output without log pots, buss them, remotely control, and make them reactive to their environment for free/cheap as well.)
You'd be amazed how often such 'backward' designs are found in manufacturing, because they really are better or cheaper or more reliable. (Case in point, I'd rather have a packaged [rotary encoder + micro + digitally controlled resistor] vs. a scratchy 'vintage' analog pot in my guitar anyday.)
* of course, a real production engineer might forgo the A/D entirely and use software to measure the pot via RC time constant :-)
being in the intersection when the light turns red is technically illegal in every state in the nation
[citation needed]
Mod points if I had 'em. If Boston instituted/enforced a rule that you couldn't enter the intersection on green for a left turn, they would have to outlaw left turns outright to avoid complete gridlock (dedicated left-turn lanes on otherwise single-lane-per-direction roads are rare here). Allowing to enter the intersection ensures that at least one car can move per light cycle.
It sounds like somebody has never made a lefthand turn on a busy street before.
Kind of ironic that the Datel NOT being sued was acquired by a company named "C&D".
Wallet, yeah.
So, to bring this around to the original point, you have completely neglected (in that oh-so-predictable myopic, Linux-fanboi way)
Interesting stab from someone whose username is 'macs4all' writing a long enough Why I Buy Apple rant to make the 'Read more...' link appear.
No, the article was quite clear: they retrieved cached copies of the emails from the hard drive, most likely forensically (probably Firefox/Flash/etc.'s cache). The case was about reasonable expectation of privacy vs. the wording of the company policy. Notice the article quotes all these corporate lawyers having a wet dream about the ruling telling them how to word their policies in the future. You're right in that the article does not specify whether the 'company-loaned' laptops could be taken home, or whether it was in this particular case (e.g. whether the encrypted emails passed through her employer's internet connection, her home connection, the coffeeshop, etc.)
No, FTFA, the policy permitted 'occasional personal use'. I'd definitely consider 8 emails over the course of employment occasional.
that the product is not the only piece of IP being steamrollered? As late as Nov. 09, posts on http://icontrolpad.com/ have referred to the product under the shortened name 'iPad' (or Ipad, or ipad). Apple's iPad announcement probably put a formal stop to that (Jan 2010?)