The winner of the auction does not get the rights to any profits from the first two films.
The winner does, on the other hand, get the right to do anything else with the rest of the entire franchise.
As I understand it, that could include sequels to Terminator: Salvation or the Terminator 3 plotlines, continuations of the Sarah Connor Chronicles TV series, or entirely new series based in the universe. From the sound of it, they're even selling off licensing rights to all of these properties.
Still worthless, you say? According to TFA, the last time the Terminator franchise rights were sold, they went for $25 million. The purchaser used the rights to make Terminator: Salvation, which grossed $380 million worldwide. Not so bad.
(On the other hand, it's maybe worth noting that the rights to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles auctioned for more than twice what was paid for Terminator...)
I live in the bay area and the only big newspaper around here is the Mercury News.
Which is funny, because growing up in the Bay Area I never even considered San Jose to be part of it! (It's the South Bay, which we always saw as synonymous with Silicon Valley, while the Bay proper stopped at around Palo Alto.)
No joke about the Mercury News, though. Believe it or not, I once interviewed for a gig writing about technology for the business desk of the San Francisco Chronicle. I was expecting somebody to ask me something along the lines of, "What do you consider to be the most important local companies if you're covering technology?" Nobody did. So I brought it up myself: "How do you guys focus on companies like Oracle, Google, and Sun? I assume you talk about new developments mostly in terms of market opportunities, rather than technology?" I was told that they don't bother, because the Mercury mostly handles that stuff. "Business technology news" at the Chronicle was going to be stuff like reviews of the latest iPod accessories, phone tips, and gaming consoles.
These days, the Chronicle's business coverage can be found on the back pages of the sports section.
...I, for one, haven't been following the Pleo story for as much as five minutes. So this is one breaking news item about which kdawson is at least 210,378 times better informed than I.
Truly, one is reminded of why one started reading Slashdot in the first place.
You sound sarcastic about Microsoft's T-SQL claims. Maybe you're unaware that a lot of people really do use Microsoft SQL Server as a mission-critical database, and that it's really fairly competitive in that market. Most of the complaints I've heard about it have to do with pricing, and less often, being forced to run it on Windows.
Compare to Linux, for example, where "leaking an unfinished build" is a total non-issue. Even expected, in fact. So whether the leaks are intentional or not, if they are a problem, then it sounds like they're a problem of Microsoft's own making.
Vigorous defense of one's trademark does not demand that one pursue ridiculous or even questionable claims. All it means is that you can't knowingly allow violation of your trademark, then attempt to enforce it later. Where a case appears legally questionable, or outright stupid, there is absolutely no duty to pursue it.
Pardon me for saying so, but if a case is legally questionable then that's exactly the reason to pursue it. The question gets answered by the courts.
Let's take a look at SparkFun's defense against Sparc's claims:
phonetically identical: Yes, English phonics work like that. However, 'spark' is not the dominant portion of our name. No one calls us 'SPARK'. We're always called 'Sparkfun' (even though we prefer 'SparkFun'). ANALYSIS: Sorry, but that's pretty thin. If the name was SparcFun, it would still be "phonetically identical" (which is the actual claim). I think everybody agrees SparcFun would likely be infringing. So why not SparkFun since the two sound exactly the same? The claim here is "phonetically identical," as in "sounds alike," and they do sound alike. And this isn't Sparc's whole claim, it's one part of a claim, so let's move on to the next part..
visually similar: No one calls us Spark. Have a look at our logo. We don't separate spark from fun. We are, and are known as 'SparkFun' as shown by our trademark. ANALYSIS: Pretty much same as above. Part of Sparc's claims is that the mark could be mistaken for "one of SI's many Sparc-derived brands." Sparc is saying that if the market has heard of SparcTop, Sparc Shop, SparcStation, SparcSummit, SparcPhone, SparcWorks, etc -- all of which are Sparc Inc. trademarks -- then there could be some confusion with SparkFun. Sounds reasonable to me. Also, on the "visually similar" part, SparkFun's logo seems to use the same red color as Sparc Inc.'s logo. Check out Sparc's color guidelines for its trademark licensees. They specify the exact Pantone red you should use. They even go so far as to state you should never use orange and green -- why, I have no idea, but I'm sure it has something to do with trademarks.
used in connection with identical goods: No. We don't sell any product related to SPARC architecture. ANALYSIS: Now they're just playing stupid. Sparc explains in its letter exactly what is meant by "identical goods" as defined by the terms of trademark law: "computer hardware, including integrated circuits and circuit boards." In case you don't know how trademark works, you register a trademark under a certain category. Sparc probably does not have a trademark in the area of soft drinks, for example. But it does have a trademark in the area of integrated circuits and circuit boards, which is exactly what SparkFun sells.
confusion is likely to occur among the relevant purchasing group: I have no doubt that some of our customers purchase SPARC based servers. But we have not received an email or phone call from anyone on our website looking for the 'Server' product category. ANALYSIS: And now they just sound like kids in a schoolyard. Nobody calls up Sparc Inc. looking for servers, either, and this has nothing to do with Sparc's trademark claim.
And just to add weight to Sparc's case, the C&D letter specifically points out that Sparc Inc. has owned the primary trademark since 1989. SparkFun was founded in 2003 as a Web site. For all we know, it was running on a SparcServer. I think SparkFun is going to have a difficult time proving that it wasn't aware of the Sparc trademark, even if it insists that its own mark doesn't resemble Sparc's at all.
In summary, I'm sorry, but I think Sparc Inc. has a pretty solid claim here. It's fine to post a response on SparkFun's Web site, but if I w
But people who report to their doctor about symptoms aren't always lab tested to see exactly what they have. It'll get noted as "the flu", when it may not be influenza at all, skewing all the statistics.
It may distort the statistics, but only to make the flu seem less deadly. Very, very few people die of the common cold, so misdiagnosed flu is hardly going to add to the mortality figures.
FWIW, the leading cause of death from influenza is pneumonia -- either viral pneumonia caused by the flu virus itself, or bacterial pneumonia from a secondary infection after the flu has passed -- and this is not typically a symptom of the "flu-like" viruses, including coronavirus, rhinovirus, and the other viruses that we lump into the common cold category.
I don't think you can be a carrier of a virus the way you can a bacteria (i.e. Typhoid Mary)
Sure you can. A "carrier" in that sense is just someone who has the disease but doesn't appear to have symptoms. But that's subjective -- i.e. how many sneezes or coughs equal one flu?
It's estimated that as much as 90 percent of all sexually-active adults have contracted HPV, the virus that causes genital (and other) warts, and a big part of the reason why HPV is so successful is because so many carriers are asymptomatic.
For me, it is a choice. i am an omnivore choosing to not eat other animals. These spiders aren't troubled over the treatment of factory farm animals, or worried about cholesterol or anything else.
Perhaps I'm quibbling, but I hope you see that what is true of the spider is also true of a lot of human vegetarians, as well.
At my college, several of the calculus instructors allowed you to use any and all calculators and computer programs you wanted for homework... and none whatsoever for exams.
FWIW though, in chemistry class the calculator actually prevented data entry errors; it could instantly give me the atomic mass of any formula, so I didn't need to furiously add and multiply to find the masses of three or four compounds before I got to work on each new problem.
Hmmm. My college classes didn't bother with this rote memorization stuff. You were allowed to bring an index card with all the formulas you could fit onto it. Believe me, it was no guarantee of a grade.
Well, I agree with your point about certifying calculators for tests. However, I feel obliged to stick up for my HP 50g calc, which cost just upwards of $100. 21st Century or not, I think it's an awesome little machine. Yes, you can buy an entire laptop for $300, but it wouldn't be as portable and you'd still need to find software for it to handle symbolic algebra. Programmable calculators are purpose-built devices. True, an iPod Touch could probably handle all the math given the right software package, but IMHO its UI still wouldn't be as friendly as a calculator full of nice, responsive buttons. No matter how many clock cycles your CPU runs at, it's still going to be easier to push one button than to type SQRT(). Plus, RPN is fast as hell once you learn it (and it doesn't take long), and teaching the calculator to perform the rote tricks you run through everyday is a geek joy.
although honestly if a calculator can solve the exam then probably the exam isn't testing much...
Exactly. When you're confronted with a diagram labeled with a few figures, it doesn't really matter how many formulas your calculator knows -- if you don't know which number plugs in where, you're toast. And that's just basic math; the idea that a programmable calculator will ace a chemistry exam for you is laughable.
You just don't notice that most consumer electronic devices would last for quite a long time on regular AA/AAA batteries now because they have also switched over to a rechargeable that will fail in 1.5 years so that you HAVE to replace it sooner rather than later.
Nice conspiracy theory, but the real reason so many consumer electronic devices have moved to rechargeable batteries is not planned obsolescence, but because modern rechargeable technologies are considerably smaller and/or lighter than standard-format AA/AAA batteries. Portability is pretty high on the list of consumer demands; yet at 10.5mm in diameter, AAA batteries will not fit inside the form factor of an iPod Classic, Apple's largest current model.
Not to mention that I find the whole "compression makes diffs problematic" theory implausible, as compressed filesystems for embedded systems are nothing new.
As others have commented elsewhere, more likely they did it this way because providing regular, easy free updates doesn't jibe with their business model.
Is it really 40 minutes of downloading for the kind of people who thing this device is more attractive/affordable than a mobile phone with a data plan?
How are you supposed to sort the seeds out of pot on the back of a digital LP?
You're skeptical, but it's premature to scoff now. To see how it all pans out we'll have to wait until spring, when Apple rolls out the digital double-LP.
That still sounds like a design flaw. In the worst-case scenario, the problem should be that the device doesn't have enough CPU and extra storage space to uncompress the archive and apply the diffs. Even in that case, I should be able to offload the current archive version to my PC, apply the diffs there, and then load it back onto the device.
...music and sport are both things that everyone should be encouraged to enjoy. By setting up both activities as something that should only be actively pursued by those with elite levels of talent you are pandering to the moneyed interests within our society that aim to steal culture from us and then charge us to passively engage in it.
Well, seriously, I think it's a little premature to take it this far.
Last I heard, Little League was still going strong and "soccer mom" is a familiar idiom to any American. I don't see lack of talent stopping any teenager from picking up an electric guitar or a drum machine (not least of all the world's most popular bands).
Sure, commercial music publishing companies love the idea of offering up musicians as "rock stars," but even back in the 1800s you had Charles Dickens traveling the country, giving readings of his novels. Few people give him the credit for destroying the American pastime of reading books, though.
You're quoting from the commercial license. TBB is quite explicitly dual-licensed. If you don't like the terms of the commercial license, you have the option to use it under the terms of the GPL v2.
Slashdot Mirror
The winner of the auction does not get the rights to any profits from the first two films.
The winner does, on the other hand, get the right to do anything else with the rest of the entire franchise.
As I understand it, that could include sequels to Terminator: Salvation or the Terminator 3 plotlines, continuations of the Sarah Connor Chronicles TV series, or entirely new series based in the universe. From the sound of it, they're even selling off licensing rights to all of these properties.
Still worthless, you say? According to TFA, the last time the Terminator franchise rights were sold, they went for $25 million. The purchaser used the rights to make Terminator: Salvation, which grossed $380 million worldwide. Not so bad.
(On the other hand, it's maybe worth noting that the rights to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles auctioned for more than twice what was paid for Terminator...)
I'm probably one of the few people that found his book, "the World is Flat" to be incredibly uninsightful.
You probably read the first edition. Try one of the later ones; he adds a hundred pages or so each time he revises it. For clarity, you understand.
Have you ever considered reading non-genre fiction, then? Seriously; I barely ever read any genre stuff, for pretty much the reasons you cite.
San Francisco Chronicle?
Nope. Not even close.
I live in the bay area and the only big newspaper around here is the Mercury News.
Which is funny, because growing up in the Bay Area I never even considered San Jose to be part of it! (It's the South Bay, which we always saw as synonymous with Silicon Valley, while the Bay proper stopped at around Palo Alto.)
No joke about the Mercury News, though. Believe it or not, I once interviewed for a gig writing about technology for the business desk of the San Francisco Chronicle. I was expecting somebody to ask me something along the lines of, "What do you consider to be the most important local companies if you're covering technology?" Nobody did. So I brought it up myself: "How do you guys focus on companies like Oracle, Google, and Sun? I assume you talk about new developments mostly in terms of market opportunities, rather than technology?" I was told that they don't bother, because the Mercury mostly handles that stuff. "Business technology news" at the Chronicle was going to be stuff like reviews of the latest iPod accessories, phone tips, and gaming consoles.
These days, the Chronicle's business coverage can be found on the back pages of the sports section.
We've been following the Pleo saga for years.
...I, for one, haven't been following the Pleo story for as much as five minutes. So this is one breaking news item about which kdawson is at least 210,378 times better informed than I.
Truly, one is reminded of why one started reading Slashdot in the first place.
You sound sarcastic about Microsoft's T-SQL claims. Maybe you're unaware that a lot of people really do use Microsoft SQL Server as a mission-critical database, and that it's really fairly competitive in that market. Most of the complaints I've heard about it have to do with pricing, and less often, being forced to run it on Windows.
Compare to Linux, for example, where "leaking an unfinished build" is a total non-issue. Even expected, in fact. So whether the leaks are intentional or not, if they are a problem, then it sounds like they're a problem of Microsoft's own making.
Vigorous defense of one's trademark does not demand that one pursue ridiculous or even questionable claims. All it means is that you can't knowingly allow violation of your trademark, then attempt to enforce it later. Where a case appears legally questionable, or outright stupid, there is absolutely no duty to pursue it.
Pardon me for saying so, but if a case is legally questionable then that's exactly the reason to pursue it. The question gets answered by the courts.
Let's take a look at SparkFun's defense against Sparc's claims:
ANALYSIS: Sorry, but that's pretty thin. If the name was SparcFun, it would still be "phonetically identical" (which is the actual claim). I think everybody agrees SparcFun would likely be infringing. So why not SparkFun since the two sound exactly the same? The claim here is "phonetically identical," as in "sounds alike," and they do sound alike. And this isn't Sparc's whole claim, it's one part of a claim, so let's move on to the next part..
ANALYSIS: Pretty much same as above. Part of Sparc's claims is that the mark could be mistaken for "one of SI's many Sparc-derived brands." Sparc is saying that if the market has heard of SparcTop, Sparc Shop, SparcStation, SparcSummit, SparcPhone, SparcWorks, etc -- all of which are Sparc Inc. trademarks -- then there could be some confusion with SparkFun. Sounds reasonable to me. Also, on the "visually similar" part, SparkFun's logo seems to use the same red color as Sparc Inc.'s logo. Check out Sparc's color guidelines for its trademark licensees. They specify the exact Pantone red you should use. They even go so far as to state you should never use orange and green -- why, I have no idea, but I'm sure it has something to do with trademarks.
ANALYSIS: Now they're just playing stupid. Sparc explains in its letter exactly what is meant by "identical goods" as defined by the terms of trademark law: "computer hardware, including integrated circuits and circuit boards." In case you don't know how trademark works, you register a trademark under a certain category. Sparc probably does not have a trademark in the area of soft drinks, for example. But it does have a trademark in the area of integrated circuits and circuit boards, which is exactly what SparkFun sells.
ANALYSIS: And now they just sound like kids in a schoolyard. Nobody calls up Sparc Inc. looking for servers, either, and this has nothing to do with Sparc's trademark claim.
And just to add weight to Sparc's case, the C&D letter specifically points out that Sparc Inc. has owned the primary trademark since 1989. SparkFun was founded in 2003 as a Web site. For all we know, it was running on a SparcServer. I think SparkFun is going to have a difficult time proving that it wasn't aware of the Sparc trademark, even if it insists that its own mark doesn't resemble Sparc's at all.
In summary, I'm sorry, but I think Sparc Inc. has a pretty solid claim here. It's fine to post a response on SparkFun's Web site, but if I w
Lady Gaga apparently uses Linux.
But people who report to their doctor about symptoms aren't always lab tested to see exactly what they have. It'll get noted as "the flu", when it may not be influenza at all, skewing all the statistics.
It may distort the statistics, but only to make the flu seem less deadly. Very, very few people die of the common cold, so misdiagnosed flu is hardly going to add to the mortality figures.
FWIW, the leading cause of death from influenza is pneumonia -- either viral pneumonia caused by the flu virus itself, or bacterial pneumonia from a secondary infection after the flu has passed -- and this is not typically a symptom of the "flu-like" viruses, including coronavirus, rhinovirus, and the other viruses that we lump into the common cold category.
I don't think you can be a carrier of a virus the way you can a bacteria (i.e. Typhoid Mary)
Sure you can. A "carrier" in that sense is just someone who has the disease but doesn't appear to have symptoms. But that's subjective -- i.e. how many sneezes or coughs equal one flu?
It's estimated that as much as 90 percent of all sexually-active adults have contracted HPV, the virus that causes genital (and other) warts, and a big part of the reason why HPV is so successful is because so many carriers are asymptomatic.
For me, it is a choice. i am an omnivore choosing to not eat other animals. These spiders aren't troubled over the treatment of factory farm animals, or worried about cholesterol or anything else.
Perhaps I'm quibbling, but I hope you see that what is true of the spider is also true of a lot of human vegetarians, as well.
At my college, several of the calculus instructors allowed you to use any and all calculators and computer programs you wanted for homework... and none whatsoever for exams.
FWIW though, in chemistry class the calculator actually prevented data entry errors; it could instantly give me the atomic mass of any formula, so I didn't need to furiously add and multiply to find the masses of three or four compounds before I got to work on each new problem.
Hmmm. My college classes didn't bother with this rote memorization stuff. You were allowed to bring an index card with all the formulas you could fit onto it. Believe me, it was no guarantee of a grade.
Well, I agree with your point about certifying calculators for tests. However, I feel obliged to stick up for my HP 50g calc, which cost just upwards of $100. 21st Century or not, I think it's an awesome little machine. Yes, you can buy an entire laptop for $300, but it wouldn't be as portable and you'd still need to find software for it to handle symbolic algebra. Programmable calculators are purpose-built devices. True, an iPod Touch could probably handle all the math given the right software package, but IMHO its UI still wouldn't be as friendly as a calculator full of nice, responsive buttons. No matter how many clock cycles your CPU runs at, it's still going to be easier to push one button than to type SQRT(). Plus, RPN is fast as hell once you learn it (and it doesn't take long), and teaching the calculator to perform the rote tricks you run through everyday is a geek joy.
although honestly if a calculator can solve the exam then probably the exam isn't testing much...
Exactly. When you're confronted with a diagram labeled with a few figures, it doesn't really matter how many formulas your calculator knows -- if you don't know which number plugs in where, you're toast. And that's just basic math; the idea that a programmable calculator will ace a chemistry exam for you is laughable.
You just don't notice that most consumer electronic devices would last for quite a long time on regular AA/AAA batteries now because they have also switched over to a rechargeable that will fail in 1.5 years so that you HAVE to replace it sooner rather than later.
Nice conspiracy theory, but the real reason so many consumer electronic devices have moved to rechargeable batteries is not planned obsolescence, but because modern rechargeable technologies are considerably smaller and/or lighter than standard-format AA/AAA batteries. Portability is pretty high on the list of consumer demands; yet at 10.5mm in diameter, AAA batteries will not fit inside the form factor of an iPod Classic, Apple's largest current model.
Not to mention that I find the whole "compression makes diffs problematic" theory implausible, as compressed filesystems for embedded systems are nothing new.
As others have commented elsewhere, more likely they did it this way because providing regular, easy free updates doesn't jibe with their business model.
Is it really 40 minutes of downloading for the kind of people who thing this device is more attractive/affordable than a mobile phone with a data plan?
How are you supposed to sort the seeds out of pot on the back of a digital LP?
You're skeptical, but it's premature to scoff now. To see how it all pans out we'll have to wait until spring, when Apple rolls out the digital double-LP.
That still sounds like a design flaw. In the worst-case scenario, the problem should be that the device doesn't have enough CPU and extra storage space to uncompress the archive and apply the diffs. Even in that case, I should be able to offload the current archive version to my PC, apply the diffs there, and then load it back onto the device.
...music and sport are both things that everyone should be encouraged to enjoy. By setting up both activities as something that should only be actively pursued by those with elite levels of talent you are pandering to the moneyed interests within our society that aim to steal culture from us and then charge us to passively engage in it.
Well, seriously, I think it's a little premature to take it this far.
Last I heard, Little League was still going strong and "soccer mom" is a familiar idiom to any American. I don't see lack of talent stopping any teenager from picking up an electric guitar or a drum machine (not least of all the world's most popular bands).
Sure, commercial music publishing companies love the idea of offering up musicians as "rock stars," but even back in the 1800s you had Charles Dickens traveling the country, giving readings of his novels. Few people give him the credit for destroying the American pastime of reading books, though.
You're quoting from the commercial license. TBB is quite explicitly dual-licensed. If you don't like the terms of the commercial license, you have the option to use it under the terms of the GPL v2.
Speaking as one who HAS tried Office 10 -- and many of the alternatives -- I'd love to hear you explain what you're talking about.
if you want FreeBSD, use it.. If you want Linux, use it instead.
Yeah, that's what Debian said.