What shocks me is that HARRY BUTTHOLE POTTER is somehow superior in this regard. I find it shocking exactly because this "determinism by birth" is my single biggest problem with Harry Potter. Basically, Harry Potter, on his own merits, is a below-average student that breaks whatever rules he pleases, and gets away with it, and everybody still wants to kiss his ass... why... because of his PARENTS. Just because he has some fancy-ass parents, Harry Potter is some sort of living legend.
Although what you say is true to some extent, I have a theory that there is a valid reason behind this tolerance. Rowling drops hints in books 2 and 4 that makes me suspect that, because of his parentage, Harry is important, although perhaps only one character in the book suspects it.
Anyway, I enjoyed the movie when I saw it a week ago and it's enough to tide me over until the Two Towers comes out.
I think he'd better take a much needed vacation. I'm tired of hearing about crackers going to jail. The Falkland Islands are rather nice this time of year. Ahh there's no need. Given that article (and many others like it) doesn't seem to know the difference between England and Britain, he could probably just move to Scotland, Wales, or N.I. and they wouldn't find him;-)
I must admit that when I moved to the UK from Australia I was stunned at how "primitive" the "first-past-the-post" voting scheme employed in the UK (and from the article, US) is compared to the "preferential" scheme used in Australia.
The thing I find strange is that when I try to explain it to friends in the UK, they think the preferential system is too complicated, yet at election time commentators endlessly discuss the problems of "splitting the vote" and people even set up web sites so that voters in different electorates can "trade" their votes to avoid the problem! It's crazy.
I thought it was hosted by a kid in Afghanistan running a TI or Amiga or whatever it was on a 9600 baud modem. Shhhhhh! Keep quiet! All those computers are just cardboard mockups with a few flashing lights! It's all a tax dodge while the real work gets done on that Amiga. Admittedly it's overclocked to the max...
Building a computer, to tell you how to build another, larger, more complex computer. Hrmmm..
Uh, that's how it works in general. Or did you think modern CPUs were laid out by hand?
Continuing on that theme, it's written (at least next to the Apple 1 and Cray machines at the Science Museum in London) that Seymour Cray used an Apple to design his super computers while Apple used a Cray to simulate one of their designs.
In a meaningful way, they may have just made it possible for people to use any non-commercial trademark in a way that doesn't infringe on the original use.
I don't think this is anything particularly new. The Beatles' Apple record company used to use a picture of a real apple on the labels, which I assume they considered to be a trademark.
I don't think the farmer tried to sue them for it.;-)
I don't know if you are familiar with rail service in Europe but it is a good alternative to flying or driving. For example high-speed rail is considered THE way to travel between Paris and Brussels.
Not just Paris and Brussels but London as well despite the fact that the train currently runs at about 1/2 speed between the 'chunnel' and London. (The high speed link is still under construction). Although the train doesn't travel quite as fast a plane,:-), you save a lot of time in other ways. The stations are closer to the city centres (i.e. in them!), the 'check in' is fast and you don't have to wait for you luggage to arrive (pulversised) on the baggage carousel.
From my understanding of the article, the observer makes use of the signals broadcast from a local cell tower, presumably equipped with their own receiver, to pick up the reflections from moving objects in the vicinity.
In WW2 both sides used strips of aluminium foil (codenamed "Window" by the UK) of the correct length (relative to wavelength) to jam the opposition's radar. If you were so worried, what would stop you from lining the insides of your house etc strips of the appropriate length? Would there be a problem with tuning it to cell frequencies?
I'm just curious to understand the issues involved.
The CSS key is 40-bit, and that is small enough to brute force. Besides, if they weren't able to get it out of the Xing player, they could've decompiled any of few dozen DVD players out there. But, FWIW, those 40bits are split into 16 and 24 bit pieces and the system is so weak it can be brute-forced on the 16bit section.
As far as the "waiting until 1999" argument goes, it sounds like Nissan is claiming he didn't infringe until 1999 when he started linking to car sites, meaning he was generating revenue based on visitors who were looking for www.nissanmotors.com.
Oops! Sorry, I missed that bit in the OP (makes note to self to drink some more coffee).
Since neither Hebrew nor Arabic is written with Latin characters, I find the "it's the name of a month" argument rather weak.
FWIW, in Turkish which does use Latin characters, the word for April is also pronounced "Nissan" but is spelled "nisan". (English obviously needs the double 'S' to stop the "i" from becoming a long sound).
Besides, the guy is not trying to sell cars under the name of Nissan, just computers. Seems to me to be similiar to the Apple (records) vs Apple (computer). It's easy enough to distinguish the companies because they are in totally different markets.
but last time I checked, 600 kg = 272 lbs. Errrr....When exactly did you check? Was it before you had any morning coffee. I think you hit the divide and not the multiply key on your calculator;-) (1kg ~ 2.2lbs)
number of batteries this car needs are enormous. Sure, you can put it in an elise (probably not, but just work with me) but you'll have enough charge to get up to 30mph before it dies.
Maybe I'm missing something here, but there is an Electric Lotus Elise. It has quite reasonable acceleration performance (but is speed limited to 150kph/90mph I think). There's some details here but a lot more links are listed on google.
Digital images aren't distorted, they just don't fit our colour perception. (AFAIK, among others, more a logarithmic scale in contrast to the linear used in digital images) Actually, nonlinear storage/transmission of colour intensity is quite common (aka gamma). TVs use it and most computer systems do too. For a very good description of this field try Charles Poynton's Colour and Gamma FAQs
On a more serious note, are these characters saying that there are more advanced stellar civilizations in the southern sky than the northern sky? One shudders at the contorted logic and statistical analysis that could have led to such a conclusion.
It's a perfectly logical conclusion if you've ever looked into the night sky in the southern hemisphere. A larger amount of the milkyway is visible from "Down Under" and, given the relative proximity of our own galaxy's stars, it would seem a better set of candidates.
Damn! I'd forgotten that. Still I suppose it's not as bad as some of the changes made to "historical" movies - certain recent war movies spring to mind.
Parkes is the radio telescope that stared in the movie "The Dish" which describes when it was used to receive the transmissions of the first moon landing.
Cripes, man, he was talking about US Patent law and the USPTO. This story is about US patent law and the USPTO. The "first patent board" referenced can be contextually taken to mean "first patent board in the United States". We all know that other countries exist outside the US. Irrelevant defensive spoutings of "That wasn't first! We had it first! Not you!" make it sound like you have an inferiority complex. Try to be aware of context and you won't feel so offended.
I wasn't offended, but it sounds like someone else is. FWIW, I'm not British. I was just supplying some more info on the background of patents and the long history behind them.
Slashdot Mirror
.. they had an interview with Bill and I'm sure he said the "media to go" was going to be manufactured by Intel.
The article doesn't seem to mention this but perhaps I just misheard the TV broadcast.
What shocks me is that HARRY BUTTHOLE POTTER is somehow superior in this regard. I find it shocking exactly because this "determinism by birth" is my single biggest problem with Harry Potter. Basically, Harry Potter, on his own merits, is a below-average student that breaks whatever rules he pleases, and gets away with it, and everybody still wants to kiss his ass... why... because of his PARENTS. Just because he has some fancy-ass parents, Harry Potter is some sort of living legend.
Although what you say is true to some extent, I have a theory that there is a valid reason behind this tolerance. Rowling drops hints in books 2 and 4 that makes me suspect that, because of his parentage, Harry is important, although perhaps only one character in the book suspects it.
Anyway, I enjoyed the movie when I saw it a week ago and it's enough to tide me over until the Two Towers comes out.
I think he'd better take a much needed vacation. I'm tired of hearing about crackers going to jail. The Falkland Islands are rather nice this time of year. ;-)
Ahh there's no need. Given that article (and many others like it) doesn't seem to know the difference between England and Britain, he could probably just move to Scotland, Wales, or N.I. and they wouldn't find him
I must admit that when I moved to the UK from Australia I was stunned at how "primitive" the "first-past-the-post" voting scheme employed in the UK (and from the article, US) is compared to the "preferential" scheme used in Australia.
The thing I find strange is that when I try to explain it to friends in the UK, they think the preferential system is too complicated, yet at election time commentators endlessly discuss the problems of "splitting the vote" and people even set up web sites so that voters in different electorates can "trade" their votes to avoid the problem! It's crazy.
I thought it was hosted by a kid in Afghanistan running a TI or Amiga or whatever it was on a 9600 baud modem.
Shhhhhh! Keep quiet! All those computers are just cardboard mockups with a few flashing lights! It's all a tax dodge while the real work gets done on that Amiga. Admittedly it's overclocked to the max...
Building a computer, to tell you how to build another, larger, more complex computer. Hrmmm..
Uh, that's how it works in general. Or did you think modern CPUs were laid out by hand?
Continuing on that theme, it's written (at least next to the Apple 1 and Cray machines at the Science Museum in London) that Seymour Cray used an Apple to design his super computers while Apple used a Cray to simulate one of their designs.
In a meaningful way, they may have just made it possible for people to use any non-commercial trademark in a way that doesn't infringe on the original use.
;-)
I don't think this is anything particularly new. The Beatles' Apple record company used to use a picture of a real apple on the labels, which I assume they considered to be a trademark.
I don't think the farmer tried to sue them for it.
It's not difficult to achieve.
Due to a hard disk error, my home PC is both dead and silent.
I don't know if you are familiar with rail service in Europe but it is a good alternative to flying or driving. For example high-speed rail is considered THE way to travel between Paris and Brussels.
:-), you save a lot of time in other ways.
Not just Paris and Brussels but London as well despite the fact that the train currently runs at about 1/2 speed between the 'chunnel' and London. (The high speed link is still under construction).
Although the train doesn't travel quite as fast a plane,
The stations are closer to the city centres (i.e. in them!), the 'check in' is fast and you don't have to wait for you luggage to arrive (pulversised) on the baggage carousel.
From my understanding of the article, the observer makes use of the signals broadcast from a local cell tower, presumably equipped with their own receiver, to pick up the reflections from moving objects in the vicinity.
In WW2 both sides used strips of aluminium foil (codenamed "Window" by the UK) of the correct length (relative to wavelength) to jam the opposition's radar. If you were so worried, what would stop you from lining the insides of your house etc strips of the appropriate length? Would there be a problem with tuning it to cell frequencies?
I'm just curious to understand the issues involved.
The CSS key is 40-bit, and that is small enough to brute force. Besides, if they weren't able to get it out of the Xing player, they could've decompiled any of few dozen DVD players out there.
But, FWIW, those 40bits are split into 16 and 24 bit pieces and the system is so weak it can be brute-forced on the 16bit section.
Just a post to cancel moderation - the stupid system magically gave a flamebait to one of the posts at random!
As far as the "waiting until 1999" argument goes, it sounds like Nissan is claiming he didn't infringe until 1999 when he started linking to car sites, meaning he was generating revenue based on visitors who were looking for www.nissanmotors.com.
Oops! Sorry, I missed that bit in the OP (makes note to self to drink some more coffee).
Since neither Hebrew nor Arabic is written with Latin characters, I find the "it's the name of a month" argument rather weak.
FWIW, in Turkish which does use Latin characters, the word for April is also pronounced "Nissan" but is spelled "nisan". (English obviously needs the double 'S' to stop the "i" from becoming a long sound).
Besides, the guy is not trying to sell cars under the name of Nissan, just computers. Seems to me to be similiar to the Apple (records) vs Apple (computer). It's easy enough to distinguish the companies because they are in totally different markets.
In related news, the MPAA lobbies for legislation to illegalize Viagra... ;-)
No! You don't need an antenna for the technology to work
but last time I checked, 600 kg = 272 lbs. ;-) (1kg ~ 2.2lbs)
Errrr....When exactly did you check? Was it before you had any morning coffee.
I think you hit the divide and not the multiply key on your calculator
number of batteries this car needs are enormous. Sure, you can put it in an elise (probably not, but just work with me) but you'll have enough charge to get up to 30mph before it dies.
:-)
Maybe I'm missing something here, but there is an Electric Lotus Elise. It has quite reasonable acceleration performance (but is speed limited to 150kph/90mph I think). There's some details here but a lot more links are listed on google.
I'd be tempted but I've already got a Lotus.
Simon
Digital images aren't distorted, they just don't fit our colour perception. (AFAIK, among others, more a logarithmic scale in contrast to the linear used in digital images)
Actually, nonlinear storage/transmission of colour intensity is quite common (aka gamma). TVs use it and most computer systems do too. For a very good description of this field try Charles Poynton's Colour and Gamma FAQs
Meant to write "starred" not "stared".
/me goes off to sit in the corner wearing the dunces cap.
What is the point in SETI?
.....
/me removes tongue from cheek...
Certain parts of society are already liasing with aliens, and we have been for some time. Wake up and smell the coffee!
Yes and those documentaries, MIB and MIB2, were fascinating, weren't they?
On a more serious note, are these characters saying that there are more advanced stellar civilizations in the southern sky than the northern sky? One shudders at the contorted logic and statistical analysis that could have led to such a conclusion.
It's a perfectly logical conclusion if you've ever looked into the night sky in the southern hemisphere. A larger amount of the milkyway is visible from "Down Under" and, given the relative proximity of our own galaxy's stars, it would seem a better set of candidates.
Simon
Damn! I'd forgotten that. Still I suppose it's not as bad as some of the changes made to "historical" movies - certain recent war movies spring to mind.
(does not mention SETI yet, at least not prominently)
Perhaps not, but the link from that to the Long Baseline Array is quite interesting. There is a map of the array of telescopes - the spread is huge!
Parkes is the radio telescope that stared in the movie "The Dish" which describes when it was used to receive the transmissions of the first moon landing.
Cripes, man, he was talking about US Patent law and the USPTO. This story is about US patent law and the USPTO. The "first patent board" referenced can be contextually taken to mean "first patent board in the United States". We all know that other countries exist outside the US. Irrelevant defensive spoutings of "That wasn't first! We had it first! Not you!" make it sound like you have an inferiority complex. Try to be aware of context and you won't feel so offended.
I wasn't offended, but it sounds like someone else is. FWIW, I'm not British. I was just supplying some more info on the background of patents and the long history behind them.