> Except that - as a nerd - you grew up in a culture (presumably public school) where 80% > of the time, the snickering _was_ about you.
You thought is was (and on rare occasions you were correct) but most of the time they were utterly unaware of and uninterested in your existence. The normals probably got snickered at more than you did: the other kids actually cared about them.
> Is an open source project obliged to provide support for its users?
They are not obliged to do anything, including creating the project in the first place.
> If so, for how long should the support last?
For as long as the contract you paid for says it will. Software is free. Support is not.
> Web servers cost money, especially for popular sites.
Yes. How much is it costing you to mirror the site? You aren't doing so? Why not? Did you contact the project principals and ask them how much it it would cost to induce them to put the site back up? Why not?
The usage here is quite inappropriate as those who were "disappeared" in the 1970s were themselves victims of government repression while these celebrities are the beneficiaries thereof.
> I certainly see a possibility that if someone was playing with a bunch of these blocks > without the packaging they came in and they turned out to be of poor quality, lego could > be blamed by the shape alone.
By that reasoning anyone who can maintain a monopoly for long enough can use trademark to extend it forever.
Lego can prevent confusion by printing their trademark-protected "Lego" logo on each block that they sell.
> You're right about functional shape and appearance not being subject to trademark. > However, is the Lego brick shape and appearance entirely functional? Couldn't > competitors make equally functional, if incompatible,
No. In this context "entirely functional" means "entirely compatible". Competitors are free (in the US) to duplicate any feature of the Lego blocks that are necessary for their blocks to interoperate with the Lego blocks.
From the article I conclude that the researchers have performed an experiment that indicates that if sharks do raise their scales while swimming it might allow them to go faster. They've discovered nothing about what sharks actually do.
This is a silly business-methods patent application that will certainly be rejected by the PTO after Bilski. And no, a trade secret certainly does not qualify as prior art in the US. Nor should it.
> If you read through EAs Terms of Service you are agreeing to pretty much anything they > want to do to your computer. Its vague and broad and pretty much absolves EA of any > wrong doing.
Such contracts are generally not enforceable in the US.
Please read the article. The bug isn't having root. The bug is having everything you type on the keyboard fed to a root shell without you knowing about it. Eventually you are going to type something that will be interpreted as a command, with unexpected results.
Note that it is T-Mobile that is selling the phones, though, not Google. Most likely T-Mobile introduced the bug.
Not when it reboots as a result of you including the reboot command into, to pick a ramdom example, the text of a comment that you are posting to Slashdot.
Which doesn't make the same kind of mistakes humans do.
> Seriously, even if the "math prover" is right, who proves the "math prover"?
The point is that if a human and a computer agree it is more likely that they are right than when two humans (or two computers) agree because the weaknesses of the human and the computer differ.
> What about getting a ham radio license? That's fine and all, provided you don't ever use > encryption, don't mind people intercepting your data, and remember to identify your > station periodically.
And don't mind being shut down, losing your license, and being fined when you get caught.
You need neither "one perfect sample" nor bits from different specimens. There are billions of copies of the DNA in one specimen. You match up overlapping segments until you have complete strands.
Slashdot Mirror
> It's a mental shortcut. Not too long ago (in evolutionary terms of time) we lived in
> hostile environment...
Yes, we did all go to high school, didn't we?
> Except that - as a nerd - you grew up in a culture (presumably public school) where 80%
> of the time, the snickering _was_ about you.
You thought is was (and on rare occasions you were correct) but most of the time they were utterly unaware of and uninterested in your existence. The normals probably got snickered at more than you did: the other kids actually cared about them.
> Is an open source project obliged to provide support for its users?
They are not obliged to do anything, including creating the project in the first place.
> If so, for how long should the support last?
For as long as the contract you paid for says it will. Software is free. Support is not.
> Web servers cost money, especially for popular sites.
Yes. How much is it costing you to mirror the site? You aren't doing so? Why not? Did you contact the project principals and ask them how much it it would cost to induce them to put the site back up? Why not?
The usage here is quite inappropriate as those who were "disappeared" in the 1970s were themselves victims of government repression while these celebrities are the beneficiaries thereof.
> I certainly see a possibility that if someone was playing with a bunch of these blocks
> without the packaging they came in and they turned out to be of poor quality, lego could
> be blamed by the shape alone.
By that reasoning anyone who can maintain a monopoly for long enough can use trademark to extend it forever.
Lego can prevent confusion by printing their trademark-protected "Lego" logo on each block that they sell.
> You're right about functional shape and appearance not being subject to trademark.
> However, is the Lego brick shape and appearance entirely functional? Couldn't
> competitors make equally functional, if incompatible,
No. In this context "entirely functional" means "entirely compatible". Competitors are free (in the US) to duplicate any feature of the Lego blocks that are necessary for their blocks to interoperate with the Lego blocks.
Does a Mustang that went through a hailstorm count?
> Then it became Firefox, and Debian didn't like that and called it IceWeasel.
Debian had no objection whatever to calling it Firefox. Mozilla objected to Debian doing so.
And the resulting acronym forms the first part of a sentence one might hear from a victim.
> ...free of copyright ... gotchas.
A name cannot have any "copyright gotchas" . Names cannot be protected by copyright.
From the article I conclude that the researchers have performed an experiment that indicates that if sharks do raise their scales while swimming it might allow them to go faster. They've discovered nothing about what sharks actually do.
This is a silly business-methods patent application that will certainly be rejected by the PTO after Bilski. And no, a trade secret certainly does not qualify as prior art in the US. Nor should it.
This is Britain, remember. Surely there are CCTV cameras monitoring all the graveyards.
Sessile robots don't count.
> If you read through EAs Terms of Service you are agreeing to pretty much anything they
> want to do to your computer. Its vague and broad and pretty much absolves EA of any
> wrong doing.
Such contracts are generally not enforceable in the US.
"Obstacle detected: 10m fallen rock. Could damage us. Avoid." ... ... ... ... ...
Zig
Zag
"Obstacle detected: small automobile. No hazard. Ignore."
Crunch
Please read the article. The bug isn't having root. The bug is having everything you type on the keyboard fed to a root shell without you knowing about it. Eventually you are going to type something that will be interpreted as a command, with unexpected results.
Note that it is T-Mobile that is selling the phones, though, not Google. Most likely T-Mobile introduced the bug.
> This coming from Google?
Google doesn't sell phones. It's coming from T-Mobile.
Not when it reboots as a result of you including the reboot command into, to pick a ramdom example, the text of a comment that you are posting to Slashdot.
> But I'm nonetheless self-aware.
So you say. I can arrange for my computer to make the same assertion.
> Except if it has one of the first Pentium's...
Which doesn't make the same kind of mistakes humans do.
> Seriously, even if the "math prover" is right, who proves the "math prover"?
The point is that if a human and a computer agree it is more likely that they are right than when two humans (or two computers) agree because the weaknesses of the human and the computer differ.
> What about getting a ham radio license? That's fine and all, provided you don't ever use
> encryption, don't mind people intercepting your data, and remember to identify your
> station periodically.
And don't mind being shut down, losing your license, and being fined when you get caught.
> Seems to me we'd be better off recording the genome in something with serious ECC and
> system redundancy...
It already has both.
You need neither "one perfect sample" nor bits from different specimens. There are billions of copies of the DNA in one specimen. You match up overlapping segments until you have complete strands.
For the idea or for a mediocre job of presenting the idea?