Hoyle replied, 'I've carried more water than Gunga Din for the business community -- the people who pay the taxes.'"
Business can only pay tax on income from spending. Consumer spending is direct from citizens. Government spending is indirectly from citizens.
This guy needs to be reminded as to who pays his pay-check - especially since business pays proportionately a lot LESS tax than they did a generation ago, and the soon-to-disappear middle class a lot more!
Really? Could have fooled me... You never saw that "No Keyboard. Press F1 to resume" message?
As an example, I have a second box running right now doing some work - I unplugged they keyboard, plugged it into the PS2 mouse port, then back into the PS2 keyboard port. Continues to work. BTW - There's nothing to stop you from plugging in a second mouse or keyboard, even if your first one is USB. PS2 ports are normally interrupt-driven - you don't have to ask the system to poll the devices.
Today we take it as commonplace, just like we do with multitasking, but back in the DOS world, the ability to take an 80 meg hard drive and seamlessly store 120 megs or more on it, with no performance loss (the extra time taken in compressing/decompressing was balanced by the fewer sectors that needed to be read/written to disk), was impressive.
DOS 5 was stable, well-understood, and feature complete. Absent doublespace and drivespace, there was no reason to spend the money to upgrade to DOS 6. But if you could market the upgrade as costing only a small percentage of the cost of a new drive (80 to 120 megs was running ~$400 back then), people would upgrade, so Microsoft pushed this feature heavily in their advertising.
An application that generates random gibberish that "look" like a script, then sends it embedded in a fake crash dump to Microsoft for analysis.
"Fuzzing" isn't limited to code on the local machine any more - you can now try it on Microsoft employees.
Then add further fake crash dumps from legitimate apps that didn't crash; enough of them, from enough machines, and Microsoft will be looking for non-existent bugs.
OO on opensuse 11.2 fails badly with the file open/save dialogs. They take a LONG time to be populated and usable. This is what happens when you don't use native widgets.
For a more universally visible example, look at Java Swing. S.L.O.W. No better than the previous solution, the AWT, which insisted on using a "peer object" for every screen object - think of it as "brain-damaged code thunking".
Both solutions cause problems, both solutions create bottlenecks, both solutions are seriously obsolete.
By your flawed logic, facebook should sue EVERY internet site, because they "might" be infringing. Show some common sense, please.
First, the biggest enemy of facebook's brand is facebook management doing crap.
Second, the laws do not require you to go after everyone who "might" in "some alternate universe" be infringing. The doctrine ofr "protect it or lose it" is not part of the Lanham Act, but rather something that has grown out of jurisprudence; you only have to go against apparent infringers. In other words, Apple Records could go after Apple Computer for distributing music, but Microsoft failed when they sued Lindows (and had to pay $20 million to get Lindows to agree to walk away from the name and settle the suit - gee, can I get someone to sue me and then pay me $20 million?), because (1) Windows is generic, and (2) there is no possibility in a reasonable person's mind that they could mistake the two.
So, (1) facebook was a generic term before facebook.com - it's where facebook.com took the name - the book of faces that is a yearbook, and (2) there is not enough similarity to cause confusion between facebook and teachbook.
The GIMP is NOT "native widgets" for those of us who don't use the Gnome desktop - and that's the majority of users. Anyone who uses KDE certainly can tell GIMP isn't using the desktop widget set, the same as anyone using Windows.
We say we want to get Windows users to use F/LOSS, but then we make the software ugly, and break the native navigation, style, and especially the common dialogs by using non-native dialogs that work like absolute crap on non-native-widget platforms.
It is re-inventing the wheel, or rather being "style nazis", which Gnome is notorious for (like putting the default button last just to be different, then trying for years to justify it with bs arguments).
Microsoft Doublespace (oops - they got caught stealing that one)
Only if you believe in software patents.
You don't need something to be patented to be stolen. Look at trade secrets. The formula for Coca-cola is a trade secret - not patented, because that would have required disclosing the formula.
Trade secrets are stolen a lot more often than you'd think. Remember that recent pole about disgruntled employees who take code with them to their next job?
First, who the heck uses "www" any more? That is so last century. If you have any brains, you've configured your server to answer to http://domainname.tld./ Why redirect to http://www.domain.tld? Especially since www.com is a valid domain. Oh wait - facebook redirects to http://www.facebook.com/ - they're infringing on the www.com trademark!
It's a stupid lawsuit.
And the judge isn't going to hear evidence about possible confusion in other countries - that is TOTALLY outside his jurisdiction. Thats why countries have their own courts - it's part and parcel of being a sovereign nation, duh!
I don't care if this is slashdot and you haven't taken a bath in longer than RMS, you still need to take a dump at some point. Technically, you probably could do it standing up, I guess it "depends"...
You know, you're pretty unlikely to find dead people standing up.
Never been to a real wake, have you? They'll be standing there, beer in hand, long after everyone else has drunk themselves under the table.
but I think we would question the long-term future of a tech company that could ONLY buy things.
Like Microsoft MS-DOS, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office Powerpoint, Frontpage ImgEdit, Microsoft Access, Microsoft Doublespace (oops - they got caught stealing that one), Virtual PC,...
Hey, at least Microsoft can take credit for the Zune!
Teachbook doesn't have to show that they don't infringe.
Facebook has to show:
That their copyright registration is valid and exclusive (it's not exclusive - the term was generic for yearbooks before facebook ever appeared);
That there exits substantial opportunity for confusion between facebook and teachbook (not a chance in hell of that)
Facebook only has to go after sites that the name is so close it might cause confusion, such as "facesbook.com". This was just facebook being its usual stupid self.
One of my friends tried that when we were kids - broadcast a 10-watt radio signal on the same band as a local radio station as a prank. He got shut down, though not immediately. Gear wasn't portable back in those days.
Nowadays? You can easily carry around a much more powerful transmitter.
Or like some of the locals used to do, 1.5 kw linear amplifiers on their cb radios. Illegal, but they were on the reserve, so not much enforcement of "white man's law."
As a follow-up, if you want something that really IS out of control, try the lid of a toilet seat upside-down going downhill. It's so small that you're spending all your effort just staying perched on it, and it's so slick that you really pick up speed fast - half the time you're not even facing forward because it spins. Totally out of control and totally fun!
Hey, we were kids and we invented our own fun. The bruises were worth it.
You've obviously never gone saucering (or tubing). It's not "totally uncontrollable". You can maneuver by changing your center of gravity, dragging a hand or foot over the side, catching the wind on the underside, etc.
Besides, people do insane things all the time for fun. bungee-jumping, parachuting, ski-jumping, boxing, paying money to watch "pro wrestling", etc.
Even neater would be if the dish was one of those "open mesh" dishes, with round perforations to let the wind through. Take bubble-wrap with the same spacing, and stick it to the outside. Going downhill, you not only combine the joys of saucering and breaking bubble-wrap (EVERYONE loves to break bubble-wrap), but if the snow is packed densely enough, the noise would serve as an audible warning, sort of like the external speakers on the Prius in Japan.
Doesn't matter. You don't enjoy the same trademark protection for a generic term. Ask Microsoft - it cost them $20 million to pay of Lindows when the judge said that if a settlement wasn't reached, he would probably find that Windows is not a valid trademark.
As early as 2002, a court rejected Microsoft's claims, stating that Microsoft had used the term "windows" to describe graphical user interfaces before the product, Windows, was ever released, and that the windowing technique had already been implemented by Xerox and Apple many years before[4]. Microsoft kept seeking retrial, but in February 2004, a judge rejected two of Microsoft's central claims[5]. The judge denied Microsoft's request for a preliminary injunction and raised "serious questions" about Microsoft's trademark. Microsoft feared that a court may define "Windows" as generic and result in the loss of its status as a trademark.
Facebook, being a generic term BEFORE facebook.com used it, does not enjoy the same trademark protections as a "made-up" term, which is why trademark lawyers will tell you NOT to use an existing word. Xerox == made up == good trademark. Pepsi-cola == made up == good trademark. Apple == generic == not so good (as Apple Computer found out in their lawsuit with Apple Records, even though they were in completely different fields at the time - and had to be revisited yet again when Apple started selling music), Facebook == generic == not so good. Google == fairly good because, fortunately, they mis-spelled the word googol (1 followed by 100 zeroes).
And their trademark is limited to their products, not computer products in general. Someone else can come out with Pear computers, pr Peach computers, and there's SFA that Apple can do about it. Teachbook is not infringing.
And what's to prevent B&N from using book.com as a social network for book lovers? It's not like facebook isn't also a generic term before facebook.com was created. Facebook doesn't have a leg to stand on.
You'll send a C&D, I'll tell you to take me to court or STFU. That's SOP for anyone in a domain name dispute, which is what this is. Nobody can mistake teachbook with facebook. For one thing, teachbook sounds like a place for people with a bit of an education.
Remember how Microsoft settled the Lindows case when the judge was indicating that he would find that Windows didn't enjoy copyright protection because it was a generic term. Same situation with facebook - it was already a generic term for yearbooks, so facebook's trademark is invalid.
Slashdot Mirror
Business can only pay tax on income from spending. Consumer spending is direct from citizens. Government spending is indirectly from citizens.
This guy needs to be reminded as to who pays his pay-check - especially since business pays proportionately a lot LESS tax than they did a generation ago, and the soon-to-disappear middle class a lot more!
Stop using those crappy external drives as a benchmark - a lot of them are made from RMA'd hard disks, disks that failed QC at their rated spec, etc.
Really? Could have fooled me ... You never saw that "No Keyboard. Press F1 to resume" message?
As an example, I have a second box running right now doing some work - I unplugged they keyboard, plugged it into the PS2 mouse port, then back into the PS2 keyboard port. Continues to work. BTW - There's nothing to stop you from plugging in a second mouse or keyboard, even if your first one is USB. PS2 ports are normally interrupt-driven - you don't have to ask the system to poll the devices.
Today we take it as commonplace, just like we do with multitasking, but back in the DOS world, the ability to take an 80 meg hard drive and seamlessly store 120 megs or more on it, with no performance loss (the extra time taken in compressing/decompressing was balanced by the fewer sectors that needed to be read/written to disk), was impressive.
DOS 5 was stable, well-understood, and feature complete. Absent doublespace and drivespace, there was no reason to spend the money to upgrade to DOS 6. But if you could market the upgrade as costing only a small percentage of the cost of a new drive (80 to 120 megs was running ~$400 back then), people would upgrade, so Microsoft pushed this feature heavily in their advertising.
An application that generates random gibberish that "look" like a script, then sends it embedded in a fake crash dump to Microsoft for analysis.
"Fuzzing" isn't limited to code on the local machine any more - you can now try it on Microsoft employees.
Then add further fake crash dumps from legitimate apps that didn't crash; enough of them, from enough machines, and Microsoft will be looking for non-existent bugs.
OO on opensuse 11.2 fails badly with the file open/save dialogs. They take a LONG time to be populated and usable. This is what happens when you don't use native widgets.
For a more universally visible example, look at Java Swing. S.L.O.W. No better than the previous solution, the AWT, which insisted on using a "peer object" for every screen object - think of it as "brain-damaged code thunking".
Both solutions cause problems, both solutions create bottlenecks, both solutions are seriously obsolete.
Try the PDF file format, for one. Significant enough?
By your flawed logic, facebook should sue EVERY internet site, because they "might" be infringing. Show some common sense, please.
First, the biggest enemy of facebook's brand is facebook management doing crap.
Second, the laws do not require you to go after everyone who "might" in "some alternate universe" be infringing. The doctrine ofr "protect it or lose it" is not part of the Lanham Act, but rather something that has grown out of jurisprudence; you only have to go against apparent infringers. In other words, Apple Records could go after Apple Computer for distributing music, but Microsoft failed when they sued Lindows (and had to pay $20 million to get Lindows to agree to walk away from the name and settle the suit - gee, can I get someone to sue me and then pay me $20 million?), because (1) Windows is generic, and (2) there is no possibility in a reasonable person's mind that they could mistake the two.
So, (1) facebook was a generic term before facebook.com - it's where facebook.com took the name - the book of faces that is a yearbook, and (2) there is not enough similarity to cause confusion between facebook and teachbook.
Die, facebook, die!
The GIMP is NOT "native widgets" for those of us who don't use the Gnome desktop - and that's the majority of users. Anyone who uses KDE certainly can tell GIMP isn't using the desktop widget set, the same as anyone using Windows.
We say we want to get Windows users to use F/LOSS, but then we make the software ugly, and break the native navigation, style, and especially the common dialogs by using non-native dialogs that work like absolute crap on non-native-widget platforms.
It is re-inventing the wheel, or rather being "style nazis", which Gnome is notorious for (like putting the default button last just to be different, then trying for years to justify it with bs arguments).
You don't need something to be patented to be stolen. Look at trade secrets. The formula for Coca-cola is a trade secret - not patented, because that would have required disclosing the formula.
Trade secrets are stolen a lot more often than you'd think. Remember that recent pole about disgruntled employees who take code with them to their next job?
First, who the heck uses "www" any more? That is so last century. If you have any brains, you've configured your server to answer to http://domainname.tld./ Why redirect to http://www.domain.tld? Especially since www.com is a valid domain. Oh wait - facebook redirects to http://www.facebook.com/ - they're infringing on the www.com trademark!
It's a stupid lawsuit.
And the judge isn't going to hear evidence about possible confusion in other countries - that is TOTALLY outside his jurisdiction. Thats why countries have their own courts - it's part and parcel of being a sovereign nation, duh!
No, I just think facebook is seriously f*ed up. This lawsuit is just another symptom - the fish rots from the head, you know.
Die, facebook, die!
I don't care if this is slashdot and you haven't taken a bath in longer than RMS, you still need to take a dump at some point. Technically, you probably could do it standing up, I guess it "depends" ...
Never been to a real wake, have you? They'll be standing there, beer in hand, long after everyone else has drunk themselves under the table.
Exactly. The refusal to use native widgets, etc., is stupid. A stupidity that OO and the Gimp also suffer from.
Like Microsoft MS-DOS, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office Powerpoint, Frontpage ImgEdit, Microsoft Access, Microsoft Doublespace (oops - they got caught stealing that one), Virtual PC, ...
Hey, at least Microsoft can take credit for the Zune!
And facebooks' "population stats" are skewed - how many dead accounts are there? How many dupe accounts?
Facebook has to show:
Facebook only has to go after sites that the name is so close it might cause confusion, such as "facesbook.com". This was just facebook being its usual stupid self.
Die, facebook, die!
The case you cite backs me up - MTV settled out of court :-)
One of my friends tried that when we were kids - broadcast a 10-watt radio signal on the same band as a local radio station as a prank. He got shut down, though not immediately. Gear wasn't portable back in those days.
Nowadays? You can easily carry around a much more powerful transmitter.
Or like some of the locals used to do, 1.5 kw linear amplifiers on their cb radios. Illegal, but they were on the reserve, so not much enforcement of "white man's law."
Sorry ... slight brainfart there, thanks for pointing it out :-)
As a follow-up, if you want something that really IS out of control, try the lid of a toilet seat upside-down going downhill. It's so small that you're spending all your effort just staying perched on it, and it's so slick that you really pick up speed fast - half the time you're not even facing forward because it spins. Totally out of control and totally fun!
Hey, we were kids and we invented our own fun. The bruises were worth it.
You've obviously never gone saucering (or tubing). It's not "totally uncontrollable". You can maneuver by changing your center of gravity, dragging a hand or foot over the side, catching the wind on the underside, etc.
Besides, people do insane things all the time for fun. bungee-jumping, parachuting, ski-jumping, boxing, paying money to watch "pro wrestling", etc.
Even neater would be if the dish was one of those "open mesh" dishes, with round perforations to let the wind through. Take bubble-wrap with the same spacing, and stick it to the outside. Going downhill, you not only combine the joys of saucering and breaking bubble-wrap (EVERYONE loves to break bubble-wrap), but if the snow is packed densely enough, the noise would serve as an audible warning, sort of like the external speakers on the Prius in Japan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_v._Lindows
Facebook, being a generic term BEFORE facebook.com used it, does not enjoy the same trademark protections as a "made-up" term, which is why trademark lawyers will tell you NOT to use an existing word. Xerox == made up == good trademark. Pepsi-cola == made up == good trademark. Apple == generic == not so good (as Apple Computer found out in their lawsuit with Apple Records, even though they were in completely different fields at the time - and had to be revisited yet again when Apple started selling music), Facebook == generic == not so good. Google == fairly good because, fortunately, they mis-spelled the word googol (1 followed by 100 zeroes).
And their trademark is limited to their products, not computer products in general. Someone else can come out with Pear computers, pr Peach computers, and there's SFA that Apple can do about it. Teachbook is not infringing.
And what's to prevent B&N from using book.com as a social network for book lovers? It's not like facebook isn't also a generic term before facebook.com was created. Facebook doesn't have a leg to stand on.
You'll send a C&D, I'll tell you to take me to court or STFU. That's SOP for anyone in a domain name dispute, which is what this is. Nobody can mistake teachbook with facebook. For one thing, teachbook sounds like a place for people with a bit of an education.
Remember how Microsoft settled the Lindows case when the judge was indicating that he would find that Windows didn't enjoy copyright protection because it was a generic term. Same situation with facebook - it was already a generic term for yearbooks, so facebook's trademark is invalid.