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User: CaptainStormfield

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Comments · 144

  1. Price Discrimination on A Justification for Server CALs? · · Score: 1

    Companies price their server software this way for the same reason that airlines charge last minute (i.e. business) travelers more than leisure travelers: price discrimination. In other words, charge more to those who are willing to pay more, less to those who are willing to pay less. Sofware firms are in it for the money, after all.

  2. Re:Chicken and Egg. on Is SETI a Security Risk? · · Score: 1

    Sounds like something worth reading. In what work does that line appear?

  3. Re:Already hacked - Linux Appliance on Full Debian ARM for Under $200 · · Score: 2, Informative

    RTFA. The NSLU has nothing to do with WIFI. Its a NAS device.

  4. Buy pollution credits? on Getting the Most Out of Your Green Buck? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You could buy $12K worth of pollution credits from these guys. This would likely result in a greater net reduction in pollution, but of course you don't get any financial return on investment.

  5. Re:people vs businesses on How Amazon and Google are taking eBay's Business · · Score: 2

    Amazon, however, isn't very good to other businesses.

    Somehow I'm not able to shed any tears for poor little Target and Toys R Us. I suspect that they are big boys who can take care of themselves when it comes to Amazon.

  6. Re:Script Request: IMDB & Netflix Partnership on Hacking the Web with Greasemonkey · · Score: 1

    Go here and look for the Netflix section. There are scripts that add a link to IMDB from Netflix and vice versa.

  7. Re:Have they fixed basics yet? on Apple Quietly Releases iTunes 4.8 · · Score: 2, Informative

    I don't get duplicates when I tell iTunes to "add folder to library" and point it at my itunes music folder. Widows XP for me; perhaps the mac version works differently?

  8. Re:Um, no on A New Species Of Giant Ape? · · Score: 1

    You can also get DNA from feces; one of the articles says that scientists have already collected some poop from these mystery critters.

  9. Re:Good? on Online Poker Bots Becoming Problematic? · · Score: 1

    Actually, a blackjack bot would only be a little bit bad for the casinos. Absent card counting, the house still has an advantage in blackjack, even if players play perfectly.

  10. Re:additionally... on First Ten Programs on New Install? · · Score: 1

    As a long-time TerraTerm user I have to say . . . try PuTTY. SSH and port forwarding much easier to configure; screen easily resizable, better color support, etc. etc.

  11. Canon digicam with waterproof enclosure on Cameras for Dark and Wet Locations? · · Score: 1

    Canon makes some nifty waterproof enclosures for their digital cameras. The case for the S50 is waterproof to 100' and allows you to take photos while the camera is in the enclosure.

    Presumably you could overcome the low-light issue with a tripod and and a long exposure.

  12. Re:Minor correction on Delta 2 Rocket Launches 50th GPS Satellite · · Score: 1

    Thanks for the clarification. I still think that my original point is valid, e.g. that anyone who can get a gps reading (with a suitable GPS) and can broadcast corretion data, can provid DGPS

  13. Re:Kudos to the US on Delta 2 Rocket Launches 50th GPS Satellite · · Score: 1

    Two reasons why the military hasn't stopped differential GPS:

    (1) In most situations they can't. Differential GPS just broadcasts the difference between a location measurement given by GPS and the actual location of the differential GPS station. So long as you can take GPS readings at a place whith known coodinates, and can make radio broadcasts on the appropriate frequencies, you can do differential GPS.

    (2) Differential GPS base stations must broadcast information. If the military is worried about a bad guy using diff gps during wartime, they can just set a missile to home in on his signal.

  14. Re:Kudos to the US on Delta 2 Rocket Launches 50th GPS Satellite · · Score: 1

    Good commercial unit use the phase information from both the civilian channel AND the military channel.

    Do you know which commercial units support this feature?

  15. Full text of the opinion on Domain-Name Protest Is Protected Speech · · Score: 4, Informative

    The full text of the opinion here if you're interested.

  16. Re:Casebooks for Law Students on Suggested Reading for IP Lawyers? · · Score: 1

    IAAL. All of the casebooks that I've encountered contain cases, not briefs. While its true that casebooks often do require you to figure out the legal principals/policies at play, rather than just laying them out for you like a study aid or an outline, I still believe that they can provide a useful overview. Thinking specifically of my copyright book, I would think that any person of reasonable intelligence would find the book approcable and interesting. Then again, perhaps law school and practice have warped my perceptions a bit. :-)

  17. Casebooks for Law Students on Suggested Reading for IP Lawyers? · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I would recommend picking up a few casebooks written for law students (probably available in your university bookstore, or your university's lawschool bookstore, or in your university's library or law library). These are useful for a several of reasons:

    (1) they'll give you a good, thought-provoking overview of the field;

    (2) most casebooks do not assume much background legal knowledge (though they'll probably assume *some* background legal knowledge),

    (3) the cases in the books are "boiled down" versions that present only the important bits of the cases; and

    (4) the casebooks are (relatively) objective.

  18. Re:no point in applying for a patent on IBM Patents Method For Paying Open Source Workers · · Score: 1

    That is a pretty expensive way to establish prior art! Surely it would be easier to just publish a description of their new method.

  19. Re:No. on Are Geeks in Saudi Arabia Just Like Us? · · Score: 1

    Only 30 years ago you could get the death penalty for rape (and you still can in Louisiana).

    A minor nit, but it is unconstitutional (even in Lousiana) to give someone the death penalty for rape of an adult woman. See Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584 (1977) . Lousiana recently sentenced someone convicted of child rape to death; query whether the death penalty for child rape will ultimately withstand constitutional review.

  20. Re:Slightly funnier take on URLs Patented, Domain Registrars Sued · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If all these things are as obvious as people like to claim, why don't they patent them?

    Because obvious stuff isn't patentable?

  21. Re:replies so far on Blocking Pop-ups at the ISP Level? · · Score: 1

    You might also have a potential difficulty with copyright -- the altered version of the page without the pop-up code could be a "derivitave work", based on the original web page. Often, permission is required in order to create a derivitave work based on a copyrighted work.

    This post is not intended to constitute legal advice. If you need such advice, ask a lawyer, not Slashdot.

  22. Don't be mislead on Canon of Important Software IP Cases? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You are certainly going down the right path in thinking about the "big picture" of the legal field in which you want to practice. However, I'd offer to caveats/suggestions:

    (1) Don't be mislead into thinking that your practice will usually involve issues of the magnitude of those in the "leading" cases. Those cases are leading cases becuase they are unusual, and because they are watershed cases that totally rearranged the legal landscape. Most litigation practice involves filling in the minute gaps left open by the big cases, if you're lucky enough to deal with big cases at all. For better or worse (probably worse) day-to-day legal practice is about details, not the big picture.

    (2) You might consider taking a look at a general intellecutual property casebook (one prepared for law students). Obviously, there are many "general" IP cases that are very important in the software domain. (My copyright text, for instance, contained many software copyright cases). I'm sure that there are casebooks for Software IP too. These are a great place to start. They don't assume much background, and the cases are often condensed to include only the important bits.

    IAAL (though not a Software IP lawyer).

  23. Re:Tape. on Best Redundant Storage for Home Use? · · Score: 1

    Fireproof safes are only "fireproof" because, when heated, they saturate the contents with liquid. (Wet paper has a higher combustion point than dry). While a little water shouldn't hurt your CDrs, the high temps inside a fireproof safe are likely to destroy them fairly effectively.

  24. Sounded Great on The Introvert Advantage · · Score: 2, Informative

    . . . until I got to the bit about aromatheraphy. Plueeezzzz

    Seriously, I wonder if this book looks at the introvert/extrovert dichotomy as too absolute. I am generally an introverted person (I do, after all, read Slashdot!). However, in some social situations I behave more like an extravert (for example: the quick questions thing mentioned in the review). Pop psychology is perhaps more interesting if everyone fits neatly into one box or the other, but I suspect that reality is much more complex.

    That said, this sounds like an interesting read.

  25. Article misstates what the Supreme Court did on Jesus Castillo, Supreme Court, And Free Speech · · Score: 1

    The article implies that the U.S. Supreme Court made some sort of ruling about Castillo's case--perhaps that obscenity is a matter for the states to work out. This is totally incorrect. All that the Supreme Court did is deny certiorari in this case (their ruling reads, in its entirety, that "Petition for writ of certiorari to the Court of Appeals of Texas, Fifth District, denied.") [Couldn't find this ruling in a free on-line database, or I'd post a link.]

    The U.S. Supreme court receives THOUSANDS of petitions for certiorari each year. From that, they pick a handful where (a) there is an opportunity to "claify" important areas of the law, and (b) the facts of the case provide a good setting in which to do the clarifying. The fact that they denied Castillo's petition does not imply that they took any position on the merits of his case. By necessity, the Supreme Court denies cert. in many meritorious cases each year; unlike the federal courts of appeal, the Supreme Court's job is not primarily error correction.

    This post is not intended to constitute legal advice. If you need such advice, see your lawyer, not Slashdot!