You're Iraq calculations seem to count every civilian killed by the other side against the US. I know the war is not popular, but it seems a little over the top to blame America for insurgents using mentally retarded women as "suicide" bombers.
Of course, if someone at Gitmo ever gets a hangnail it's considered a "war crime" so I really can't comment on how or if any objective standards are applied in a war.
I have much more idea about what I'm talking about than what you do, and you just proved my point to. Germany is a common law country with a highly detailed civil code in place to cover a very narrow and exact situation that you just defined. Another amusing feature that you didn't mention is that the EXACT system you just talked about also charges taxes on all copying media so that CD you gave to your friend involved a payment to the German media industry (see Wikipedia for more). So your magical WunderLand of Germany charges me for every CD I buy that I never infringe anyone's copyright with so that you can give away CDs.
Fair Use is a much broader defense that is based on 4 equitable factors, the most important of which is the nature of the use. It is an affirmative defense to actual infringement (whereas your exception is just that: it is a narrow exception to an act that is NOT considered infringement). Fair use's background is grounded in the first amendments has allowed lots of things in the US that I know Germany would never allow, like unauthorized parodies that are not looked at the same way in Europe where copyright is generally considered more of a "moral" right. Despite what most teenagers on Slashdot moan about, Copyright is NOT mostly abused to prevent you from getting every movie and album you want for free. Abuse of Copyright is actually when it prevents legitimate speech and works from being made due to their necessary reliance on other media. Fair Use is a powerful doctrine that allows this speech to be published to enhance public discourse.
Oh the horror, the evil illuminati and the tri-lateral commission are going to take away Fair Use all over the world! This is all America's Fault!!
Oh wait... just one tiny little problem with the usual Slashdot conspiracy theory. There is exactly 1 country in the world that has fair use: The US. In the history of the world there has been exactly 1 country that has EVER recognized fair use: The US. No country except for the US has ever recognized fair use as a legal theory. In some common-law countries like the UK and Australia there is a parallel concept of "fair dealing", but it tends to be given a much narrower interpretation than the broad equitable doctrine of Fair Use that is employed in the US. When it comes to common law countries like those in the EU, there are enumerated lists of exceptions from copyright protection that are extremely strict and inflexible compared to Fair Use rights. This is how it has been for well over 100 years, but it's fun to see Slashdot promote FUD and ignorance instead of any type of rational discussion (again).
It's not really fascinating so much as it is logical. Why pay more for something you won't have exclusive control over? The balance here is that Verizon has agreed to give up exclusivity, in exchange for not having to pay as much for the spectrum. As reported here earlier, Google was actually pushing up bids just to make the reserve price for the spectrum. Even though I think the bids were sealed, I'm pretty sure Verizon had a good clue that it was Google that was pushing up the bids on the C-band, and it would be in Verizon's interest for it to at least own the band even if it would not have exclusive control over devices on the band.
(typed exactly) the important part is the "-bin" after firefox since the file named "firefox" is just a shellscript that invokes the binary firefox-bin executable file. As for libraries... if you are running any modern (probably 2006 onwards) distro and if you install the proper packages it should be OK. If you are on some ancient Linux distro that hasn't been updated then there could be issues. Time marches on.
I think you are missing some packages Firefox 3 needs. Go to the directory where the firefox binary is located and run this:
ldd./firefox-bin
You'll get a big dump of *.so files that Firefox expects to find at runtime. For your particular problem, under Ubuntu/Kubuntu the package you need is the libpango1.0-0 package (apt-get install this one). You may find other libraries missing too when you run ldd. Hunting them down can be a PITA, but when 8.04 comes out it will have everything you need and FF3 will be part of the main repository.
If you aren't using an Ubuntu flavor, the same basic methodology applies, just use your own distro's packaging system to install the pango libs and other dependencies.
Another problem that came up on a friend's install was a library linking problem because a bunch of libraries that FF3 uses are in its distribution directory and for some reason the runtime library loader is not finding them. My friend had an Ubuntu 7.10 install where this was a problem... but at the same time I have Kubuntu 7.10 and it wasn't an issue at all (go figure). That can usually be solved by tweaking the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable to include the FF install directory where its extra libraries reside.
Your statement is not accurate. I have a Dell 2707 WFP (that uses a Samsung panel used in Samsung 27" models too). I can assure you after looking at a bunch of monitors, you can tell the difference. As seen in the Anandtech review the panel used is S-PVA. From use I can say that while the colors might not be good enough for a professional photographer who would spend $6,000 on a monitor, it IS great for my uses and the colors look excellent from all angles.
And I used it perfectly. However, what you are forgetting is that the text I put inside the italics itself had > and < characters that I didn't escape correctly. So get it right.
Yes this story is mostly for historical amusement, it has very little significance. Also, remember is applies to patents from the ORIGINAL Manhattan Project era. If you go out an invent a novel invention useful solely for atomic weapons you won't get a patent on it today: From the MPEP
706.03(b) Barred by Atomic Energy Act [R-2] - 700 Examination of Applications 706.03(b) Barred by Atomic Energy Act [R-2]
A limitation on what can be patented is imposed by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. Section 151(a) (42 U.S.C. 2181(a)>)No patent shall hereafter be granted for any invention or discovery which is useful solely in the utilization of special nuclear material or atomic energy in an atomic weapon.
The terms "atomic energy" and "special nuclear material" are defined in Section 11 of the Act (42 U.S.C. 2014).
Sections 151(c) and 151(d) (42 U.S.C. 2181(c) and (d)) set up categories of pending applications relating to atomic energy that must be brought to the attention of the Department of Energy. Under 37 CFR >*1.14(d)1.14(d)Director))
And for the record I AM a registered patent agent.
The 4th amendment: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Please tell me how NSA code contributions to a project involve any form of "searches and seizures", much less "unreasonable" ones. Or alternatively, show me how this is a warrant issuing without probable cause.... I'm not holding my breath waiting for anything approaching an intelligent answer.
Oh by the way... did I mention that if you don't vote for Obama you are automatically a grand wizard in the KKK and are evil racist scum?
See that's the problem with identity politics, the Dems were inconvenient enough to have candidates from two different victim groups so these lame arguments sound even sillier than normal.
I hope someone mods you funny instead of informative, but it's really hilarious when Slashdotters scream about the Constitution when child porn vendors or suicide bombers get caught online, but when it comes to silencing people who have a different political viewpoint than you do then any means including violence is perfectly OK.
Courts have expressly not extended doctrine of first sale to electronic files like mp3's and it would make perfect sense to extend that to ebooks. The thing to remember about first sale doctrine is that you do NOT own the "content" of a book you purchase. If I go out and buy The DaVinci Code I have 0 ownership interest in the story. What I DO have an ownership interest in is the actual physical book and the ink printed in that book. I can go out and resell the book or give it away and there is nothing the copyright owner can do about it (famous early case from 1909 about a publisher that sued Macy's for selling its books below the price the publisher wanted. Copyright had nothing to do with the eventual sale price because first sale doctrine meant the publisher lost control of the physical books after it had made the initial sale, Macy's was not bound by further contractual obligations either).
However, looking at statute there are exceptions to first sale. One is rental of music: Ever notice how you can get a movie from Netflix but not a CD? The same applies to software (with a narrow exception for videogames so places like Gamestop can stay open). This rule goes way back to the '70's & 80's when it was pretty obvious that music "rental" places were just fronts for mass copying of music. You'd go in, rent a record, and there would be blank tapes by the checkout and a wink & a nudge. See Section 109 of the copyright act for more on this.
In the digital age, the same reasoning that applies to the exceptions to first sale doctrine has been extended to digital downloads. Here the actual instantiation of the copy is merely a set of bits sitting on a drive. It is too difficult to be able to make an actual "sale" of the instance when transferring it over the Internet. Before you say "but I delete the file after I send it!", the courts considered that and do not buy the argument. That's why the article notes that selling your entire eBook would count: you are transferring a physical manifestation of the copyrighted material instead of trying to play games with moving bits around.
Where CAN there be limitations on sales of actual physical items: Well, most of the limits in the article have nothing to do with copyright. Instead, they are contractual limitations which you agree to when you purchase the eBook. Copyright gets confused with many other kinds of law, but don't forget once you are in privity (aka you make a deal to buy a book from Amazon) then the contract will likely be much more relevant than generic Copyright law.
Disclaimer: IANAL but I am a 2L in copyright class right now.
Microsoft does not have anything close to a Monopoly position in games... look at the PS3, Wii, and the vast majority of non-MS games on XBox for proof of that. I know that every time MS makes a marketing campaign it is seen as some sort evil conspiracy that's bigger than 9/11, but face it: it's just a marketing campaign that has had about 0 impact on Microsoft's share of PC games. That's because MS dominated before the campaign, and they continue to dominate afterwords.
Now, instead of wearing a tinfoil hat, try making constructive answers on where Linux has issues in games:
1. APIs. Yes, I'm aware of OpenGL and other APIs that can be cobbled together, but DirectX presents a much more coherent and stable platform for game developers to work with. Even with the unpopularity of DirectX 10, look at all the games that can smoothly use DX9 and have modular support for DX10... show me a single Linux API that can work that well. The closest thing I've seen is SDL which is a shadow of DirectX, and from what I can see is basically a dead project now.
2. No Interest in paying for software: Just read the comments on how horrifying the idea of paying for anything is on this site (unless it's Apple or AMD hardware in which case it's magically OK). Game developers have enough problems with casual pirates, let alone ones who look at getting games for free as some form of religious Jihaad.
There ARE open source games out there... but with the rare exception (scorched3d is about the only one I know of) they are usually low quality or are just derivatives of something done better elsewhere. It's not just the graphics, it's the overall game that falls down when you don't have teams hammering and testing the game.
3. Difficulty in making multi-platform games. Mac games have their own niche marketshare, but the desktop share of Macs is at least ten times higher than Linux, and there is a culture of actually paying for software in the Mac world. Porting from the dominant platform (Windows) over to a Linux is a big problem that involves big work. Slashdot runs at least 1 story a week about how PC games are dying (see the UT story today), so if the entire PC platform is dying... why would I want to spend millions of dollars porting to an OS with a tiny market share and a userbase that is religiously hostile to me trying to make a profit off the work?
4. WINE. Yes, people bitch and moan about it, but it works well enough for me to play Orange Box and Civilization IV on my machine without any real problems. I actually paid for the games, and when they work under Linux I look at it as a bonus. I enjoy games, but only in spurts.
5. Consoles: If I REALLY want the popular games, I'll run out and get a Wii and not worry about all the configuration needed on a PC. Frankly, Windows is VASTLY easier to use for games than it used to be (I'm old enough to remember getting 622K of low mem free in Dos 6.22 to play games) but it is still harder than using a console.
These chips aren't designed to go into cellphones, and Intel frankly says they are not going into cellphones. They are instead designed for MIDs that will predominantly run Linux. Think of these things as smaller & lighter than your notebook with customized interfaces (not just mini-desktops) that are also easier to use than cellphones for accessing the Internet. Considering that Atom chips are roughly equivalent in processing power to first-gen Centrino chips, these devices should be extremely capable with the right software. The next generation of Atom at 32nm will have the proper power envelope to run your cellphone BTW.
I grabbed an e8400 as soon as they became available (and I'm glad I did because they sold out quickly and are still hard to come by). I have an extremely moderate overclock to 3.5Ghz with a 1.2V Vcore and it doesn't even hit 60C when I'm torturing both cores with prime95. Additionally, the entire platform (x38 chipset, Nvidia 8800GT video card, Intel hi-def audio, gigabit ethernet, etc.) worked out of the box with Kubuntu 7.10, about the only tweak was that I manually upgraded to the newest Nvidia drivers before moving disks from my 5 year old PC. Linux runs great with this machine, right down to using speedstep to downclock the CPU when it is not under load. This is a desktop machine, but the new 45nm chips & motherboards support speedstep here as well.
The performance is also extremely good, but then again I upgraded from an old Northwood P4 that still ran fine but was starting to groan under the load of Firefox + open office.
That's like saying that a Phenom will bury Atom in performance... of course it will, but then you are missing the entire point of what Atom is about. Atom is about devices smaller than notebooks where Isaiah cannot go (look at the TDP's, Atom running full-tilt is in a much lower power envelope than Isaiah). The next generation after the current Menlow platform will even work at the cellphone level, but right now Intel is targeting MIDs (Mobile Internet Devices) which predominantly run Linux BTW. The Atom/Menlowe platform could be the single biggest market for consumer-grade Linux for the foreseeable future.
Yeah great, was anyone complaining about the speed? Actually many people (myself included) were complaining about speed, and in some cases new "features" are just bloat. One feature that I would LOVE to see is to have isolation between tabs so that if one page in one tab causes a crash, the other tabs would be unaffected and the browser could continue. A multi-process model with better isolation could do this, and would also make more efficient use of multi-core systems (since FF is notoriously single-threaded, have a single thread per-tab instead of per-browser). FF does crash, and while sometimes a third party plugin is to blame, I really don't care about pointing fingers just in getting the browser more reliable.
So you are saying that when third party programmers hardwire their apps to use an alternative web browser that you don't like that this is somehow Microsoft's fault? It is pretty obvious you have no idea what the term "unfair competition" means.
The article notes that the technology here is for guiding scalpels to do precision work on brain tumors, so the subject matter is highly technical in nature. I'd like to see what the actual patents involved are before making a judgment. This case might have come down to the (apparently off the wall) behavior of the lawyers, even if the plaintiff may have had a legitimate case.
One thing you have to remember is that (with rare exceptions) the court is only going to go with the arguments that each side presents. It is not the judge's or jury's job to go out and collect evidence and make up a decision, it is instead their job to decide the case based on the evidence actually submitted and arguments actually made by opposing parties (this is called the "adversarial system"). Even if the plaintiff may have had a case, if these lawyers went out and did a completely shitty job of presenting it, presented no real evidence, and made no real legal arguments, then they can and will lose the case. The extra sanctions here are quite unusual, and go beyond the negative consequences of just not doing a good job of lawyering. I think that these "respected litigators" were probably ignoring the judge's instructions and committing other infractions that REALLY pissed the judge off. On appeal, the court does NOT hear new facts, so the appeals court went with the factual record and judgment of the District Court judge on this one.
I'm professional and i get lots of feedback how talent i'm and i dont use Photoshop. I use Gimp and Krita. What kind feedback get do you? English speak bad?
If he got the information from the employee or from any other fiduciary of the company, that would be considered insider-trading under the "tipper" - "tippee" theory. The tipper has to be some insider (usually an employee) who gives information to the tippee (an outsider who would normally not be subject to insider trading rules). The main requirements IIRC are that the tippee actually has to know that the information is insider (non-publicly known) info, and know that the tipper is breaching his fiduciary duty in disclosing the information. This is a form of classical insider trading, as opposed to misappropriation theory that the Gov. was probably trying to pin on the defendant in this case.
Yeah, Europe is so much better than America where you'll be prosecuted for criticizing those in power. Thank God the Europeans have those laws or someone might try to say something bad about Mustached Germans, Italians with helmets, or Russian "presidents" who poison their political opponents.
If you read the PDF you posted you will note that it mentions in BIG RED LETTERS: "No CPU Concurrency" This paper touts events as being a simpler programming model (and it makes a good point) but it expressly disclaims their use for things like high-performance concurrent software running on multi-CPU systems (meaning any system sold in today's market, with even more cores coming in the future).
Slashdot Mirror
You're Iraq calculations seem to count every civilian killed by the other side against the US. I know the war is not popular, but it seems a little over the top to blame America for insurgents using mentally retarded women as "suicide" bombers.
Of course, if someone at Gitmo ever gets a hangnail it's considered a "war crime" so I really can't comment on how or if any objective standards are applied in a war.
I have much more idea about what I'm talking about than what you do, and you just proved my point to. Germany is a common law country with a highly detailed civil code in place to cover a very narrow and exact situation that you just defined. Another amusing feature that you didn't mention is that the EXACT system you just talked about also charges taxes on all copying media so that CD you gave to your friend involved a payment to the German media industry (see Wikipedia for more). So your magical WunderLand of Germany charges me for every CD I buy that I never infringe anyone's copyright with so that you can give away CDs.
Fair Use is a much broader defense that is based on 4 equitable factors, the most important of which is the nature of the use. It is an affirmative defense to actual infringement (whereas your exception is just that: it is a narrow exception to an act that is NOT considered infringement). Fair use's background is grounded in the first amendments has allowed lots of things in the US that I know Germany would never allow, like unauthorized parodies that are not looked at the same way in Europe where copyright is generally considered more of a "moral" right. Despite what most teenagers on Slashdot moan about, Copyright is NOT mostly abused to prevent you from getting every movie and album you want for free. Abuse of Copyright is actually when it prevents legitimate speech and works from being made due to their necessary reliance on other media. Fair Use is a powerful doctrine that allows this speech to be published to enhance public discourse.
Oh the horror, the evil illuminati and the tri-lateral commission are going to take away Fair Use all over the world! This is all America's Fault!!
Oh wait... just one tiny little problem with the usual Slashdot conspiracy theory. There is exactly 1 country in the world that has fair use: The US. In the history of the world there has been exactly 1 country that has EVER recognized fair use: The US. No country except for the US has ever recognized fair use as a legal theory. In some common-law countries like the UK and Australia there is a parallel concept of "fair dealing", but it tends to be given a much narrower interpretation than the broad equitable doctrine of Fair Use that is employed in the US. When it comes to common law countries like those in the EU, there are enumerated lists of exceptions from copyright protection that are extremely strict and inflexible compared to Fair Use rights. This is how it has been for well over 100 years, but it's fun to see Slashdot promote FUD and ignorance instead of any type of rational discussion (again).
It's not really fascinating so much as it is logical. Why pay more for something you won't have exclusive control over? The balance here is that Verizon has agreed to give up exclusivity, in exchange for not having to pay as much for the spectrum. As reported here earlier, Google was actually pushing up bids just to make the reserve price for the spectrum. Even though I think the bids were sealed, I'm pretty sure Verizon had a good clue that it was Google that was pushing up the bids on the C-band, and it would be in Verizon's interest for it to at least own the band even if it would not have exclusive control over devices on the band.
You'll get a big dump of *.so files that Firefox expects to find at runtime. For your particular problem, under Ubuntu/Kubuntu the package you need is the libpango1.0-0 package (apt-get install this one). You may find other libraries missing too when you run ldd. Hunting them down can be a PITA, but when 8.04 comes out it will have everything you need and FF3 will be part of the main repository.
If you aren't using an Ubuntu flavor, the same basic methodology applies, just use your own distro's packaging system to install the pango libs and other dependencies.
Another problem that came up on a friend's install was a library linking problem because a bunch of libraries that FF3 uses are in its distribution directory and for some reason the runtime library loader is not finding them. My friend had an Ubuntu 7.10 install where this was a problem... but at the same time I have Kubuntu 7.10 and it wasn't an issue at all (go figure). That can usually be solved by tweaking the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable to include the FF install directory where its extra libraries reside.
Your statement is not accurate. I have a Dell 2707 WFP (that uses a Samsung panel used in Samsung 27" models too). I can assure you after looking at a bunch of monitors, you can tell the difference. As seen in the Anandtech review the panel used is S-PVA. From use I can say that while the colors might not be good enough for a professional photographer who would spend $6,000 on a monitor, it IS great for my uses and the colors look excellent from all angles.
And I used it perfectly. However, what you are forgetting is that the text I put inside the italics itself had > and < characters that I didn't escape correctly. So get it right.
Yes this story is mostly for historical amusement, it has very little significance. Also, remember is applies to patents from the ORIGINAL Manhattan Project era. If you go out an invent a novel invention useful solely for atomic weapons you won't get a patent on it today: From the MPEP
706.03(b) Barred by Atomic Energy Act [R-2] - 700 Examination of Applications
706.03(b) Barred by Atomic Energy Act [R-2]
A limitation on what can be patented is imposed by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. Section 151(a) (42 U.S.C. 2181(a)>)No patent shall hereafter be granted for any invention or discovery which is useful solely in the utilization of special nuclear material or atomic energy in an atomic weapon.
The terms "atomic energy" and "special nuclear material" are defined in Section 11 of the Act (42 U.S.C. 2014).
Sections 151(c) and 151(d) (42 U.S.C. 2181(c) and (d)) set up categories of pending applications relating to atomic energy that must be brought to the attention of the Department of Energy. Under 37 CFR >*1.14(d)1.14(d)Director))
And for the record I AM a registered patent agent.
The 4th amendment:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Please tell me how NSA code contributions to a project involve any form of "searches and seizures", much less "unreasonable" ones. Or alternatively, show me how this is a warrant issuing without probable cause.... I'm not holding my breath waiting for anything approaching an intelligent answer.
Blah Blah Blah sexism Blah BLah Blah.
Oh by the way... did I mention that if you don't vote for Obama you are automatically a grand wizard in the KKK and are evil racist scum?
See that's the problem with identity politics, the Dems were inconvenient enough to have candidates from two different victim groups so these lame arguments sound even sillier than normal.
I hope someone mods you funny instead of informative, but it's really hilarious when Slashdotters scream about the Constitution when child porn vendors or suicide bombers get caught online, but when it comes to silencing people who have a different political viewpoint than you do then any means including violence is perfectly OK.
That's exactly right. Doctrine of first sale is independent of making unauthorized copies.
Courts have expressly not extended doctrine of first sale to electronic files like mp3's and it would make perfect sense to extend that to ebooks. The thing to remember about first sale doctrine is that you do NOT own the "content" of a book you purchase. If I go out and buy The DaVinci Code I have 0 ownership interest in the story. What I DO have an ownership interest in is the actual physical book and the ink printed in that book. I can go out and resell the book or give it away and there is nothing the copyright owner can do about it (famous early case from 1909 about a publisher that sued Macy's for selling its books below the price the publisher wanted. Copyright had nothing to do with the eventual sale price because first sale doctrine meant the publisher lost control of the physical books after it had made the initial sale, Macy's was not bound by further contractual obligations either).
However, looking at statute there are exceptions to first sale. One is rental of music: Ever notice how you can get a movie from Netflix but not a CD? The same applies to software (with a narrow exception for videogames so places like Gamestop can stay open). This rule goes way back to the '70's & 80's when it was pretty obvious that music "rental" places were just fronts for mass copying of music. You'd go in, rent a record, and there would be blank tapes by the checkout and a wink & a nudge. See Section 109 of the copyright act for more on this.
In the digital age, the same reasoning that applies to the exceptions to first sale doctrine has been extended to digital downloads. Here the actual instantiation of the copy is merely a set of bits sitting on a drive. It is too difficult to be able to make an actual "sale" of the instance when transferring it over the Internet. Before you say "but I delete the file after I send it!", the courts considered that and do not buy the argument. That's why the article notes that selling your entire eBook would count: you are transferring a physical manifestation of the copyrighted material instead of trying to play games with moving bits around.
Where CAN there be limitations on sales of actual physical items: Well, most of the limits in the article have nothing to do with copyright. Instead, they are contractual limitations which you agree to when you purchase the eBook. Copyright gets confused with many other kinds of law, but don't forget once you are in privity (aka you make a deal to buy a book from Amazon) then the contract will likely be much more relevant than generic Copyright law.
Disclaimer: IANAL but I am a 2L in copyright class right now.
Microsoft does not have anything close to a Monopoly position in games... look at the PS3, Wii, and the vast majority of non-MS games on XBox for proof of that. I know that every time MS makes a marketing campaign it is seen as some sort evil conspiracy that's bigger than 9/11, but face it: it's just a marketing campaign that has had about 0 impact on Microsoft's share of PC games. That's because MS dominated before the campaign, and they continue to dominate afterwords.
Now, instead of wearing a tinfoil hat, try making constructive answers on where Linux has issues in games:
1. APIs. Yes, I'm aware of OpenGL and other APIs that can be cobbled together, but DirectX presents a much more coherent and stable platform for game developers to work with. Even with the unpopularity of DirectX 10, look at all the games that can smoothly use DX9 and have modular support for DX10... show me a single Linux API that can work that well. The closest thing I've seen is SDL which is a shadow of DirectX, and from what I can see is basically a dead project now.
2. No Interest in paying for software: Just read the comments on how horrifying the idea of paying for anything is on this site (unless it's Apple or AMD hardware in which case it's magically OK). Game developers have enough problems with casual pirates, let alone ones who look at getting games for free as some form of religious Jihaad.
There ARE open source games out there... but with the rare exception (scorched3d is about the only one I know of) they are usually low quality or are just derivatives of something done better elsewhere. It's not just the graphics, it's the overall game that falls down when you don't have teams hammering and testing the game.
3. Difficulty in making multi-platform games. Mac games have their own niche marketshare, but the desktop share of Macs is at least ten times higher than Linux, and there is a culture of actually paying for software in the Mac world. Porting from the dominant platform (Windows) over to a Linux is a big problem that involves big work. Slashdot runs at least 1 story a week about how PC games are dying (see the UT story today), so if the entire PC platform is dying... why would I want to spend millions of dollars porting to an OS with a tiny market share and a userbase that is religiously hostile to me trying to make a profit off the work?
4. WINE. Yes, people bitch and moan about it, but it works well enough for me to play Orange Box and Civilization IV on my machine without any real problems. I actually paid for the games, and when they work under Linux I look at it as a bonus. I enjoy games, but only in spurts.
5. Consoles: If I REALLY want the popular games, I'll run out and get a Wii and not worry about all the configuration needed on a PC. Frankly, Windows is VASTLY easier to use for games than it used to be (I'm old enough to remember getting 622K of low mem free in Dos 6.22 to play games) but it is still harder than using a console.
These chips aren't designed to go into cellphones, and Intel frankly says they are not going into cellphones. They are instead designed for MIDs that will predominantly run Linux. Think of these things as smaller & lighter than your notebook with customized interfaces (not just mini-desktops) that are also easier to use than cellphones for accessing the Internet. Considering that Atom chips are roughly equivalent in processing power to first-gen Centrino chips, these devices should be extremely capable with the right software. The next generation of Atom at 32nm will have the proper power envelope to run your cellphone BTW.
I grabbed an e8400 as soon as they became available (and I'm glad I did because they sold out quickly and are still hard to come by). I have an extremely moderate overclock to 3.5Ghz with a 1.2V Vcore and it doesn't even hit 60C when I'm torturing both cores with prime95. Additionally, the entire platform (x38 chipset, Nvidia 8800GT video card, Intel hi-def audio, gigabit ethernet, etc.) worked out of the box with Kubuntu 7.10, about the only tweak was that I manually upgraded to the newest Nvidia drivers before moving disks from my 5 year old PC. Linux runs great with this machine, right down to using speedstep to downclock the CPU when it is not under load. This is a desktop machine, but the new 45nm chips & motherboards support speedstep here as well.
The performance is also extremely good, but then again I upgraded from an old Northwood P4 that still ran fine but was starting to groan under the load of Firefox + open office.
That's like saying that a Phenom will bury Atom in performance... of course it will, but then you are missing the entire point of what Atom is about. Atom is about devices smaller than notebooks where Isaiah cannot go (look at the TDP's, Atom running full-tilt is in a much lower power envelope than Isaiah). The next generation after the current Menlow platform will even work at the cellphone level, but right now Intel is targeting MIDs (Mobile Internet Devices) which predominantly run Linux BTW. The Atom/Menlowe platform could be the single biggest market for consumer-grade Linux for the foreseeable future.
So you are saying that when third party programmers hardwire their apps to use an alternative web browser that you don't like that this is somehow Microsoft's fault? It is pretty obvious you have no idea what the term "unfair competition" means.
The article notes that the technology here is for guiding scalpels to do precision work on brain tumors, so the subject matter is highly technical in nature. I'd like to see what the actual patents involved are before making a judgment. This case might have come down to the (apparently off the wall) behavior of the lawyers, even if the plaintiff may have had a legitimate case.
One thing you have to remember is that (with rare exceptions) the court is only going to go with the arguments that each side presents. It is not the judge's or jury's job to go out and collect evidence and make up a decision, it is instead their job to decide the case based on the evidence actually submitted and arguments actually made by opposing parties (this is called the "adversarial system"). Even if the plaintiff may have had a case, if these lawyers went out and did a completely shitty job of presenting it, presented no real evidence, and made no real legal arguments, then they can and will lose the case. The extra sanctions here are quite unusual, and go beyond the negative consequences of just not doing a good job of lawyering. I think that these "respected litigators" were probably ignoring the judge's instructions and committing other infractions that REALLY pissed the judge off. On appeal, the court does NOT hear new facts, so the appeals court went with the factual record and judgment of the District Court judge on this one.
If he got the information from the employee or from any other fiduciary of the company, that would be considered insider-trading under the "tipper" - "tippee" theory. The tipper has to be some insider (usually an employee) who gives information to the tippee (an outsider who would normally not be subject to insider trading rules). The main requirements IIRC are that the tippee actually has to know that the information is insider (non-publicly known) info, and know that the tipper is breaching his fiduciary duty in disclosing the information. This is a form of classical insider trading, as opposed to misappropriation theory that the Gov. was probably trying to pin on the defendant in this case.
Yeah, Europe is so much better than America where you'll be prosecuted for criticizing those in power. Thank God the Europeans have those laws or someone might try to say something bad about Mustached Germans, Italians with helmets, or Russian "presidents" who poison their political opponents.
If you read the PDF you posted you will note that it mentions in BIG RED LETTERS: "No CPU Concurrency" This paper touts events as being a simpler programming model (and it makes a good point) but it expressly disclaims their use for things like high-performance concurrent software running on multi-CPU systems (meaning any system sold in today's market, with even more cores coming in the future).