Of course it's not hard to believe in the placebo effect; that's why most people do. What the article says is that it may not exist, despite that fact that it's intuitively palatable.
That used to be a big pet peeve of mine, but eventually I stopped caring when I realized that "could care less" is pretty much a commonly accepted expression. No, it doesn't make any sense, but then neither does anything else in English (why do things "make" sense instead of having sense?). People know what it means, which is all that matters.
Wouldn't a simple USB keychain memory stick be so much easier and quicker? Not to mention reliable? Knoppix has done this for years...
Yes, which is why USB sticks aren't news. This is novel and at least potentially somewhat useful (not everyone with a CD burner has an extra USB flash drive lying around).
Would it kill you to read the damn patent instead of just conjecturing from the title? IANAL, but I can't see any way you could construe this patent as applying to any of those things.
Actually, there's nothing to IP whatsoever; IP is a meaningless concept. Trademark, copyright, and patent law are distinct entities with different rules and purposes. It's fallacious to lump them together under "IP". Your statement about trademark law is almost entirely irrelevant when we're talking about patents.
That said, your basic point was correct; non-US companies can file US patents (as well as trademarks and presumably copyrights) as long as they have a US presence.
I wouldn't say that quite so authoritatively. At the moment, the reason Vorbis can't be played on the ipod is because no one's put much effort into optimizing the decoder. It may be that it's impossible, but I've heard several Vorbis and iPodLinux developers say they think the iPod has the potential to play Vorbis, albeit maybe with reduced battery life.
Not even that. This would be like if apache required a special piece of software (other than a web browser, of course) to view apache-served content, and bundled the Yahoo toolbar with that.
Most disreputable sites out there couldn't care less about Netscape, which currently has approximately 0.001% market share. If they want to hack Gecko, Firefox (with ~8%) is a much better target.
If this were a USB connector, I might be convinced it was intended as an iPod dock. As of now, all iPods support USB, though only mini's and larger even have Firewire (the iPod Shuffle does not). Maybe I am totally wrong because the dock interface on the bottom might support firewire - I just don't know.
Every dockable iPod ever made supports both Firewire and USB through the dock connection. There's no reason for Apple to use a USB connection for an internal dock.
My reasoning is that they left it off to save money and because an integrated dock would taint people's perception of the Mac mini. Instead of "Wow, this is a great computer for $499", people would think "This is a $499 iPod toy".
Why would you think they're abandonding Firewire? They just switched to shipping USB cables by default because USB is more widely supported in the PC world. iPods work fine with Firewire, and it's a superior protocol for this sort of thing. So it makes sense that, when Apple controls both ends of the connection (the iPod and the Mini), they would use Firewire.
Umm, no. If you're riding in a car and a cop pulls it over, they have no right at all to demand ID, any more than if you were just walking down the street. Now, if you're driving the car, that's a different story. But this guy isn't trying to pilot a plane without ID, just ride in one.
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Of course it's not hard to believe in the placebo effect; that's why most people do. What the article says is that it may not exist, despite that fact that it's intuitively palatable.
Guess what? Gasoline is explosive, too.
You mean like XP Home or the Office Basic/Standard editions? They seem to be quite popular.
VB6 is not VBA.
Oops. That should be "installing a simple extension".
Because installing a or even reflowing every page is much less cumbersome than using a browser that doesn't support gestures or tabs.
FYI, it's the Toyota RAV4 and the Honda CRV, not the other way around.
iPodLinux doesn't yet support audio output on 4G iPods.
FYI, iPodLinux doesn't yet support audio output on 4G iPods.
That used to be a big pet peeve of mine, but eventually I stopped caring when I realized that "could care less" is pretty much a commonly accepted expression. No, it doesn't make any sense, but then neither does anything else in English (why do things "make" sense instead of having sense?). People know what it means, which is all that matters.
Yes, which is why USB sticks aren't news. This is novel and at least potentially somewhat useful (not everyone with a CD burner has an extra USB flash drive lying around).
Would it kill you to read the damn patent instead of just conjecturing from the title? IANAL, but I can't see any way you could construe this patent as applying to any of those things.
Actually, there's nothing to IP whatsoever; IP is a meaningless concept. Trademark, copyright, and patent law are distinct entities with different rules and purposes. It's fallacious to lump them together under "IP". Your statement about trademark law is almost entirely irrelevant when we're talking about patents.
That said, your basic point was correct; non-US companies can file US patents (as well as trademarks and presumably copyrights) as long as they have a US presence.
Read the summary, dude. The parent was referring to a different patent suit, the one over portable jukeboxes.
Was this Windows XP and Powerpoint 2003? If not, it's not really a fair comparison.
That said, I agree with your general point. Most desktop software these days (OSS included) could use some serious optimization.
How does it feel to be an annoying, predictable Slashbot?
.
Why would this decoder cause you to expect a release from MS? It's not like Apple released their own decoder; someone else reverse-engeneered it.
I wouldn't say that quite so authoritatively. At the moment, the reason Vorbis can't be played on the ipod is because no one's put much effort into optimizing the decoder. It may be that it's impossible, but I've heard several Vorbis and iPodLinux developers say they think the iPod has the potential to play Vorbis, albeit maybe with reduced battery life.
Not even that. This would be like if apache required a special piece of software (other than a web browser, of course) to view apache-served content, and bundled the Yahoo toolbar with that.
Most disreputable sites out there couldn't care less about Netscape, which currently has approximately 0.001% market share. If they want to hack Gecko, Firefox (with ~8%) is a much better target.
You mean like MS provides IE?
/devil's advocate :-)
Every dockable iPod ever made supports both Firewire and USB through the dock connection. There's no reason for Apple to use a USB connection for an internal dock.
My reasoning is that they left it off to save money and because an integrated dock would taint people's perception of the Mac mini. Instead of "Wow, this is a great computer for $499", people would think "This is a $499 iPod toy".
Why would you think they're abandonding Firewire? They just switched to shipping USB cables by default because USB is more widely supported in the PC world. iPods work fine with Firewire, and it's a superior protocol for this sort of thing. So it makes sense that, when Apple controls both ends of the connection (the iPod and the Mini), they would use Firewire.
No one said registries have to be cryptic files with single points of failure. Look at gconf for a registry done right.
Umm, no. If you're riding in a car and a cop pulls it over, they have no right at all to demand ID, any more than if you were just walking down the street. Now, if you're driving the car, that's a different story. But this guy isn't trying to pilot a plane without ID, just ride in one.