But only in the United States, right? Other countries actually think before issuing patents, don't they?
You can patent, or at least attempt to patent, every idea you have. You can sue others who implement that idea. Making something of it depends on how things go.
Patents aren't free. Lawsuits aren't free. So unless you have lots of money, you're probably better off patenting your concept, then selling the patent to one of those companies that buys patents for lawsuit purposes. (I don't recall any names, but they appear frequently on slashdot, usually in articles about stupid lawsuits over stupid patents that shoudn't have been granted in the first place).
A patent is supposed to contain enough information about the invention that a knowledgable person in the field could build one based on the description in the document. Anything less should not be patentable.
In 1994 the only possibly interesting thing about a "credit-card sized computer that can store [data] and access [data]" is that it is credit-card sized. Take that away, as the judge did, and the rest is just a computer.
By 1994 I already owned an Apple Newton which could store and access data. My major complaint at the time was that it was too big. I knew eventually it could be made smaller, since that's just how computers go (better, faster, smaller). Based on that I say "credit-card sized" doesn't make this patentable, since that's just a matter of time making that possible. E-Pass didn't come up with the idea of making things smaller, and making a smaller computer has always been an insanely obvious thing to do.
I think by expanding this patent by removing the "credit card sized" restriction, they're simply exposing it as something that can and should be easily defeated by abundant prior art, as others have said, in the multitude of computers that had been created before 1994.
Isn't this just like the RIAA suing P2P downloaders? Nope. And its not really like candles vs. electricity. In both of these cases, there is a superior technology replacing the old, and the people making money off the old technology resisted it.
In this case, there is not a better technology replacing telemarketers. Its the US citizens deciding they have had enough and don't want to be constantly harrassed by telemarketers anymore.
A couple of years ago I was getting 10-20 telemarketing calls a day. Seriously. It was annoying as hell. I had caller ID and would not answer "Out of Area" or "Restricted ID", but still the phone was ringing all the time. Plus I have some legitimate friends who (for some reason) have their caller ID blocked, so I would miss their calls for fear of it being a marketing call (but then, that's their problem, and I would tell them so whenever they asked why I never answer when they call).
Then I had "Privacy Guard" added to my phone at the low, low price of $6/month. Privacy Guard was SBC's way of saying "we know telemarketers annoy you, and here's how we'll profit from it". Any caller without a valid caller ID would be prompted to say their name and press # or something. Then my phone rings and I can screen the call.
All of a sudden my house was quiet, save for the few times a day one of my friends would call. It was fantastic. For only $72/year, I got my phone back.
My telephone is for my convenience. I do not pay for my phone in order to have yet another way to receive advertisements.
Check out the T-Mobile Sidekick (Hiptop by Danger). It has a keyboard and a good size screen. Unfortunately it doesn't have downloadable applications (yet).
I can't even believe there is any doubt they will receive a patent for this, even if it isn't anything particularly interesting. In fact I'll be presently surprised if the PTO actually recognizes the existance of plenty of prior art. Maybe they don't even need to recognize prior art, just the fact that encrypting a zip file is obvious.
Its insane that you can patent "Doing something someone already did, but doing it to THIS instead of THAT." I can, perhaps, buy an argument that encryption (like the first time anyone did it) was patentable. Maybe even that different algorithms for encryption could be patentable.
But once encryption is there, applying encryption to ANYTHING should not be patentable. A zip file is just data. Encrypting it (or encrypting the contents) is not a novel concept.
So while I would love to see the PTO demonstrate some miniscule amount of clue and reject the patent, I will be very surprised if they actually do.
Re:Just wait for the game with this feature...
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Nah. Cuz then when your character gets killed, you'll try something different and eventually beat it. But if i can learn what you're doing, it will adapt and respond smarter on your subsequent attempts.
Years ago I wrote a Tcl-scripted netrek hockey bot. I could reload its script on the fly, so its behavior could change. Early on people learned that it just shot towards the goal everytime. Then all of a sudde, during a game, i loaded in new code that passed to a teammate instead of always shooting on goal. The other team was floored, as the perfectly executed pass led to a goal.
Sure it hadn't used some advanced AI (rather it was trivial and totally artificial), but it was enough to fool some of the people.
Preload the AI with enough info to make it interesting when you start the game. But if it can learn enough (not necessarily in real time) to come back and bite you in the ass on level 12, its probably doing pretty well.
Re:Just wait for the game with this feature...
on
Mutating Animations
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· Score: 1
make that "kill everyting that IS a human-controlled player".
oops;)
Re:Just wait for the game with this feature...
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· Score: 2, Informative
Of course the scene was constructed to aid the AI. When have you ever seen AI that can handle anything you throw at it? Check the latest Turing contest (or whatever its called) to see how many winners there have been in the last eternity.
That doesn't mean that given that particular situation the AI can't hold its own (until, of course, you out smart it, you genius who has been blessed with being a free-thinking human being instead of a "simple" AI).
How long did it take these genius human beings to develop AI to this point? Of course its limited, but that works just find in games. So long as the AI's object is "kill everything that isn't a human-controlled player" as opposed to "make a brilliant pass to score a gooooooooooooooooal!", they do pretty well.
Eventually (at least according to Moore, and I can guarantee he (and/or his spawn) will still want to be selling CPUs 20 years from now!) machines will be able to kick you ass at pretty much anything you wish they couldn't.
Seriously. They are doing new stuff that hasn't been done before. Cut them some slack.
Yeah, sure, the Shuttle fiasco has been an expensive endeavor, but I don't see a whole lot of other groups sending crazy experimental aricraft up to see what happens.
When you new things, it doesn't always work out. Did Jeremy McGrath totally nail his first backflip? Not bloody likely. Chances are it took him a few tries and a few scratches (and, perhaps, watching a few people break a few bones) before he got it right.
We'll never get anywhere if people nitpick every little thing NASA does. Look at the X-Prize. They have, what, $10,000 for any amatuer who launches himself into space? NASA did that 30 years ago an them some. Big friggin deal.
If John Carmack can launch an air-breathing hyperspace vehicle on his first attempt, and still be excited about winning $10,000 then i'll be impressed (ok... yeah, if ANYONE wins the X-Prize i'll be impressed, but i'm being dramatic, so give me a break).
If it carrys a BFG I'll be REALLY impressed;)
Get off NASA's back. Yeah, give them sh*t if and when they royally screw up, but as long as they keep pushing the envelope, sit down and shut up.
(No offense to any of those, and their families, who were lost in the shuttle (and other) mishaps. The people who signed up knew that they were getting into a very exclusive an experimental (really!) mission. I know I wouldn't do it.)
and $500 will still be $500. I know inflation has increased prices in my lifetime, but $500 is still a pretty decent chunk of money, and probably will still be in 54 years (when the guy is 82).
and yeah, it will totally suck for him to have to be choosing between his prescriptions and paying $500 to some company that doesn't deserve it.
on 1 &2: the award is $180 million. He is only required to pay $500/month because that is what the judge decided he was able to pay. If he were able to pay $180 million, the judge would make him pay that amount.
also, its not a fine, but a "retribution payment", payed to the satellite networks. But since they didn't lose anything, they aren't owed anything. any amount is excessive in this case.
should have put "business model" in quotes.. it was intended to be a sarcastic joke... but to elaborate... the business model of winning a case then declaring some inflated amount of revenue that MIGHT HAVE BEEN lost, if those devices HADN'T BEEN STOPPED. You forgot to italicize "planning" in your post. He didn't sell get a chance to sell the devices. They busted him before they got out. No one will be using them, so there are no actual damages.
I'm not suggesting that he not be punished. He gets a jail sentence. He probably has to pay their court costs. But paying for POTENTIAL lost revenue is ridiculous. Dish and DirectTV were not harmed, and will earn their estimated $900 million just fine. Why do they deserve extra payment (and it is extra... it is not compensation)?
I said this elsewhere, but what if he were able to afford to pay $180 mil instead of just $500/month. Would Dish and DirectTV deserve that large amount when they didn't actually lose anything? I don't think so.
I subscribe to Dish Network. I forget which plan I have but I get the basic 150 channels and a bunch of movie channels. I pay about $75/month. So every year, I pay Dish 12*75 = $900.
So by your number, they're losing $400 a year on me? I highly doubt that. If that were the case, they'd NEVER earn $900 million.
(by that reasoning, the 5000 devices would have kept 5000 people from signing on with Dish, saving them $200,000 a year;)
Problem with him appealing this sentence is that an apeals court might cut the award to $13Million but have him pay off $1K/month instead of $500.
This is a really bad thing about this ruling. Clearly he should appeal since $180 million is flat out absurd. But as you point out, he could easily be way worse off after an appeal. So there's a good chance he'll let the $180mil stand on the book (bad legal precedent), spend his 5 years in jail (probably a legitimate penalty), then flee the country and never pay them a cent.
So let's say the guy could afford to pay $180 million (maybe he's backed by one of those online music pirates stealing billions from the RIAA every year;). The court would have made him pay it. They wouldn't have made the "pay whatever you can" stipulation. Dish/Direct would get $90mil each, completely as a bonus, since they are still able to generate all the revenue they were capable of before the bust. Why do they deseve that?
Why do they deserve to be payed when they weren't damaged?
And when he does get out and flee the country, does Dish/Direct get to write off that $180 million as a loss, since they won't receive it? Their accountants are gonna have a field day on this.
They caught the guy before the devices were delivered. There will be ZERO people using his device every month. There will be ZERO dollars lost because of people using his device instead of buying legitimately.
And a common theory is that the people who would have used that device will find alternatives and wouldn't have signed up with Dish/DirectTV anyway. Granted, that's just speculation, but then again so is their $900million number.
And while he won't ever actually pay out $180 million at $500/month, its still on the books. It still sets a ridiculous precedent, and might encourage other industries to use this sort of business model.
I think the key point missing here is that right up to assigning the penalty, the system worked.
The FBI caught the guy with the goods. They stopped the devices from reaching the intended users before they started "stealing money" from the Sat companies. Go FBI! You saved Echostar+DirecTV from a potential $900million loss!
Now Echostar and DirectTV can continue operating and earn that $900million through their continued service.
Further, the guy is in jail for 5 years for what he did (ie. develop that device). He is being punished.
So why do Echostar and DirectTV deserve to be paid additionally? They lost nothing. They won't lose money due to that guy's devices. They will earn that $900million (at least according to their own estimates). Giving them another $180 million "just in case" is just stupid.
That's $6000 a year, which isn't an insignificant amount, but its potentially affordable, assuming this guy has some decent skills (at least enough skill to develop a device to decode satellite signals). It will definitely affect his life, but hopefully won't totally crush him.
(Though he may have trouble finding a good job after a 5 year prison term. Maybe he can counter-sue for potential salary decreases.)
In the end, the sat companies will get far less than their $180mil prize, so the Judge still gets that nice "sticking it to the man feeling" inside, even though he made a ridiculous decision.
As ridiculous as it was, the hot coffee incident involved ACTUAL damages. Someone was burned and they were awarded payment based on the pain and suffering and whatever.
Its not like someone sued because they saw steam coming out of the cup and were concerned that there was potential to get burned.
Hell, I'm gonna start suing cars that pass me on the highway, because they potentially could have run into me, causing an accident which could have injured me to the point that I could no longer work. There's gotta be money there!
I don't know if that's a fair comparison. My understanding was that those who incarcerated Mitnick were ignorant of his capabilities and were afraid he could launch nuclear missles (or some ridiculous load of crap) if they gave him access to a touch-tone phone. They were used to murderers and stuff, but hackers were an unknown, and they feared the unknown.
In this case, there was a trial, and the guy was planning to sell a device. Maybe what he was doing was illegal, and maybe he deserves a jail sentence.
But the court stopped him before any damages were incurred. The actual damages to the satellite companies is zero. Being ordered to pay $180 million in "potential damages" is absurd.
I know it was wrong. I tried to explain it, but they insisted in either case, and they had what I needed at the time. The only way I was going to get it was their way.
And if they didn't want a real legally binding document, that was just fine by me.
When I was in grade seven a friend of mine could not write but instead printed everything.
This is what I don't understand. Why does "writing" automatically mean cursive, as opposed to "enscribing characters on a surface"???
When I write something, be it a letter, directions somewhere, or some note, i use "printed" letters instead of cursive letters, but i'm still writing. I'm still using a pen or pencil.
So of course your friend in grade seven could write; he wasn't illiterate. He just didn't write in cursive.
Oh, and most of those zip up basketball shoes have laces underneath. You tie them, then zip the laces up inside. I guess so you don't trip on them, or they don't come untied.
I've been using iTerm lately. The version in CVS seems to fix some of the performance issues, though occasionally it gets screwed up and starts using as much CPU as possible. When I notice that, I start closing remote shells until it gives up the CPU. Its pretty annoying.
Unfortunately, the tabbed interface iTerm has is so compelling to me that I can't switch back to the stock Terminal.app.
I agree with the original poster about X. Running Gnome term or any other X-based terminals isn't great, since X doesn't quite integrate seamlessly with Aqua.
For now I'm sticking with iTerm and checking CVS every so often. Maybe I'll even think about looking at the code.
By that reasoning, kids who print just need to be smarter. If they spend less time thinking about the answer, they'll have more time to write out their answers.
Still I don't necessarily agree with you. I wrote individual printed letters, and I never had problems running out of time on tests.
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But only in the United States, right? Other countries actually think before issuing patents, don't they?
You can patent, or at least attempt to patent, every idea you have. You can sue others who implement that idea. Making something of it depends on how things go.
Patents aren't free. Lawsuits aren't free. So unless you have lots of money, you're probably better off patenting your concept, then selling the patent to one of those companies that buys patents for lawsuit purposes. (I don't recall any names, but they appear frequently on slashdot, usually in articles about stupid lawsuits over stupid patents that shoudn't have been granted in the first place).
A patent is supposed to contain enough information about the invention that a knowledgable person in the field could build one based on the description in the document. Anything less should not be patentable.
In 1994 the only possibly interesting thing about a "credit-card sized computer that can store [data] and access [data]" is that it is credit-card sized. Take that away, as the judge did, and the rest is just a computer.
By 1994 I already owned an Apple Newton which could store and access data. My major complaint at the time was that it was too big. I knew eventually it could be made smaller, since that's just how computers go (better, faster, smaller). Based on that I say "credit-card sized" doesn't make this patentable, since that's just a matter of time making that possible. E-Pass didn't come up with the idea of making things smaller, and making a smaller computer has always been an insanely obvious thing to do.
I think by expanding this patent by removing the "credit card sized" restriction, they're simply exposing it as something that can and should be easily defeated by abundant prior art, as others have said, in the multitude of computers that had been created before 1994.
Isn't this just like the RIAA suing P2P downloaders? Nope. And its not really like candles vs. electricity. In both of these cases, there is a superior technology replacing the old, and the people making money off the old technology resisted it.
In this case, there is not a better technology replacing telemarketers. Its the US citizens deciding they have had enough and don't want to be constantly harrassed by telemarketers anymore.
A couple of years ago I was getting 10-20 telemarketing calls a day. Seriously. It was annoying as hell. I had caller ID and would not answer "Out of Area" or "Restricted ID", but still the phone was ringing all the time. Plus I have some legitimate friends who (for some reason) have their caller ID blocked, so I would miss their calls for fear of it being a marketing call (but then, that's their problem, and I would tell them so whenever they asked why I never answer when they call).
Then I had "Privacy Guard" added to my phone at the low, low price of $6/month. Privacy Guard was SBC's way of saying "we know telemarketers annoy you, and here's how we'll profit from it". Any caller without a valid caller ID would be prompted to say their name and press # or something. Then my phone rings and I can screen the call.
All of a sudden my house was quiet, save for the few times a day one of my friends would call. It was fantastic. For only $72/year, I got my phone back.
My telephone is for my convenience. I do not pay for my phone in order to have yet another way to receive advertisements.
Maybe those 2 million people can get jobs selling magazines door-to-door.
Oh wait. People hate that, too.
Check out the T-Mobile Sidekick (Hiptop by Danger). It has a keyboard and a good size screen. Unfortunately it doesn't have downloadable applications (yet).
I can't even believe there is any doubt they will receive a patent for this, even if it isn't anything particularly interesting. In fact I'll be presently surprised if the PTO actually recognizes the existance of plenty of prior art. Maybe they don't even need to recognize prior art, just the fact that encrypting a zip file is obvious.
Its insane that you can patent "Doing something someone already did, but doing it to THIS instead of THAT." I can, perhaps, buy an argument that encryption (like the first time anyone did it) was patentable. Maybe even that different algorithms for encryption could be patentable.
But once encryption is there, applying encryption to ANYTHING should not be patentable. A zip file is just data. Encrypting it (or encrypting the contents) is not a novel concept.
So while I would love to see the PTO demonstrate some miniscule amount of clue and reject the patent, I will be very surprised if they actually do.
Nah. Cuz then when your character gets killed, you'll try something different and eventually beat it. But if i can learn what you're doing, it will adapt and respond smarter on your subsequent attempts.
Years ago I wrote a Tcl-scripted netrek hockey bot. I could reload its script on the fly, so its behavior could change. Early on people learned that it just shot towards the goal everytime. Then all of a sudde, during a game, i loaded in new code that passed to a teammate instead of always shooting on goal. The other team was floored, as the perfectly executed pass led to a goal.
Sure it hadn't used some advanced AI (rather it was trivial and totally artificial), but it was enough to fool some of the people.
Preload the AI with enough info to make it interesting when you start the game. But if it can learn enough (not necessarily in real time) to come back and bite you in the ass on level 12, its probably doing pretty well.
make that "kill everyting that IS a human-controlled player".
;)
oops
Of course the scene was constructed to aid the AI. When have you ever seen AI that can handle anything you throw at it? Check the latest Turing contest (or whatever its called) to see how many winners there have been in the last eternity.
That doesn't mean that given that particular situation the AI can't hold its own (until, of course, you out smart it, you genius who has been blessed with being a free-thinking human being instead of a "simple" AI).
How long did it take these genius human beings to develop AI to this point? Of course its limited, but that works just find in games. So long as the AI's object is "kill everything that isn't a human-controlled player" as opposed to "make a brilliant pass to score a gooooooooooooooooal!", they do pretty well.
Eventually (at least according to Moore, and I can guarantee he (and/or his spawn) will still want to be selling CPUs 20 years from now!) machines will be able to kick you ass at pretty much anything you wish they couldn't.
My mac has a screen saver that does that. Whoop-de-friggin do. (the screen saver is cool. this posting masquerading as news is not.)
;). Get over it.
This would hae been news back in the 1900s
Has anyone noticed that NASA is cooler than you?
;)
Seriously. They are doing new stuff that hasn't been done before. Cut them some slack.
Yeah, sure, the Shuttle fiasco has been an expensive endeavor, but I don't see a whole lot of other groups sending crazy experimental aricraft up to see what happens.
When you new things, it doesn't always work out. Did Jeremy McGrath totally nail his first backflip? Not bloody likely. Chances are it took him a few tries and a few scratches (and, perhaps, watching a few people break a few bones) before he got it right.
We'll never get anywhere if people nitpick every little thing NASA does. Look at the X-Prize. They have, what, $10,000 for any amatuer who launches himself into space? NASA did that 30 years ago an them some. Big friggin deal.
If John Carmack can launch an air-breathing hyperspace vehicle on his first attempt, and still be excited about winning $10,000 then i'll be impressed (ok... yeah, if ANYONE wins the X-Prize i'll be impressed, but i'm being dramatic, so give me a break).
If it carrys a BFG I'll be REALLY impressed
Get off NASA's back. Yeah, give them sh*t if and when they royally screw up, but as long as they keep pushing the envelope, sit down and shut up.
(No offense to any of those, and their families, who were lost in the shuttle (and other) mishaps. The people who signed up knew that they were getting into a very exclusive an experimental (really!) mission. I know I wouldn't do it.)
in 82 years he'll be 110.
and $500 will still be $500. I know inflation has increased prices in my lifetime, but $500 is still a pretty decent chunk of money, and probably will still be in 54 years (when the guy is 82).
and yeah, it will totally suck for him to have to be choosing between his prescriptions and paying $500 to some company that doesn't deserve it.
on 1 &2: the award is $180 million. He is only required to pay $500/month because that is what the judge decided he was able to pay. If he were able to pay $180 million, the judge would make him pay that amount.
also, its not a fine, but a "retribution payment", payed to the satellite networks. But since they didn't lose anything, they aren't owed anything. any amount is excessive in this case.
should have put "business model" in quotes.. it was intended to be a sarcastic joke... but to elaborate... the business model of winning a case then declaring some inflated amount of revenue that MIGHT HAVE BEEN lost, if those devices HADN'T BEEN STOPPED. You forgot to italicize "planning" in your post. He didn't sell get a chance to sell the devices. They busted him before they got out. No one will be using them, so there are no actual damages.
I'm not suggesting that he not be punished. He gets a jail sentence. He probably has to pay their court costs. But paying for POTENTIAL lost revenue is ridiculous. Dish and DirectTV were not harmed, and will earn their estimated $900 million just fine. Why do they deserve extra payment (and it is extra... it is not compensation)?
I said this elsewhere, but what if he were able to afford to pay $180 mil instead of just $500/month. Would Dish and DirectTV deserve that large amount when they didn't actually lose anything? I don't think so.
I'm thinking about that $1300/year figure.
I subscribe to Dish Network. I forget which plan I have but I get the basic 150 channels and a bunch of movie channels. I pay about $75/month. So every year, I pay Dish 12*75 = $900.
So by your number, they're losing $400 a year on me? I highly doubt that. If that were the case, they'd NEVER earn $900 million.
(by that reasoning, the 5000 devices would have kept 5000 people from signing on with Dish, saving them $200,000 a year ;)
Problem with him appealing this sentence is that an apeals court might cut the award to $13Million but have him pay off $1K/month instead of $500.
This is a really bad thing about this ruling. Clearly he should appeal since $180 million is flat out absurd. But as you point out, he could easily be way worse off after an appeal. So there's a good chance he'll let the $180mil stand on the book (bad legal precedent), spend his 5 years in jail (probably a legitimate penalty), then flee the country and never pay them a cent.
So let's say the guy could afford to pay $180 million (maybe he's backed by one of those online music pirates stealing billions from the RIAA every year ;). The court would have made him pay it. They wouldn't have made the "pay whatever you can" stipulation. Dish/Direct would get $90mil each, completely as a bonus, since they are still able to generate all the revenue they were capable of before the bust. Why do they deseve that?
Why do they deserve to be payed when they weren't damaged?
And when he does get out and flee the country, does Dish/Direct get to write off that $180 million as a loss, since they won't receive it? Their accountants are gonna have a field day on this.
They caught the guy before the devices were delivered. There will be ZERO people using his device every month. There will be ZERO dollars lost because of people using his device instead of buying legitimately.
And a common theory is that the people who would have used that device will find alternatives and wouldn't have signed up with Dish/DirectTV anyway. Granted, that's just speculation, but then again so is their $900million number.
And while he won't ever actually pay out $180 million at $500/month, its still on the books. It still sets a ridiculous precedent, and might encourage other industries to use this sort of business model.
I think the key point missing here is that right up to assigning the penalty, the system worked.
The FBI caught the guy with the goods. They stopped the devices from reaching the intended users before they started "stealing money" from the Sat companies. Go FBI! You saved Echostar+DirecTV from a potential $900million loss!
Now Echostar and DirectTV can continue operating and earn that $900million through their continued service.
Further, the guy is in jail for 5 years for what he did (ie. develop that device). He is being punished.
So why do Echostar and DirectTV deserve to be paid additionally? They lost nothing. They won't lose money due to that guy's devices. They will earn that $900million (at least according to their own estimates). Giving them another $180 million "just in case" is just stupid.
That's $6000 a year, which isn't an insignificant amount, but its potentially affordable, assuming this guy has some decent skills (at least enough skill to develop a device to decode satellite signals). It will definitely affect his life, but hopefully won't totally crush him.
(Though he may have trouble finding a good job after a 5 year prison term. Maybe he can counter-sue for potential salary decreases.)
In the end, the sat companies will get far less than their $180mil prize, so the Judge still gets that nice "sticking it to the man feeling" inside, even though he made a ridiculous decision.
As ridiculous as it was, the hot coffee incident involved ACTUAL damages. Someone was burned and they were awarded payment based on the pain and suffering and whatever.
Its not like someone sued because they saw steam coming out of the cup and were concerned that there was potential to get burned.
Hell, I'm gonna start suing cars that pass me on the highway, because they potentially could have run into me, causing an accident which could have injured me to the point that I could no longer work. There's gotta be money there!
I don't know if that's a fair comparison. My understanding was that those who incarcerated Mitnick were ignorant of his capabilities and were afraid he could launch nuclear missles (or some ridiculous load of crap) if they gave him access to a touch-tone phone. They were used to murderers and stuff, but hackers were an unknown, and they feared the unknown.
In this case, there was a trial, and the guy was planning to sell a device. Maybe what he was doing was illegal, and maybe he deserves a jail sentence.
But the court stopped him before any damages were incurred. The actual damages to the satellite companies is zero. Being ordered to pay $180 million in "potential damages" is absurd.
I know it was wrong. I tried to explain it, but they insisted in either case, and they had what I needed at the time. The only way I was going to get it was their way.
And if they didn't want a real legally binding document, that was just fine by me.
Oh my god, dude. If I had ADD and was taking a test and they made me sit there for twice as long, I'd go insane!!!
When I was in grade seven a friend of mine could not write but instead printed everything.
This is what I don't understand. Why does "writing" automatically mean cursive, as opposed to "enscribing characters on a surface"???
When I write something, be it a letter, directions somewhere, or some note, i use "printed" letters instead of cursive letters, but i'm still writing. I'm still using a pen or pencil.
So of course your friend in grade seven could write; he wasn't illiterate. He just didn't write in cursive.
Oh, and most of those zip up basketball shoes have laces underneath. You tie them, then zip the laces up inside. I guess so you don't trip on them, or they don't come untied.
I've been using iTerm lately. The version in CVS seems to fix some of the performance issues, though occasionally it gets screwed up and starts using as much CPU as possible. When I notice that, I start closing remote shells until it gives up the CPU. Its pretty annoying.
Unfortunately, the tabbed interface iTerm has is so compelling to me that I can't switch back to the stock Terminal.app.
I agree with the original poster about X. Running Gnome term or any other X-based terminals isn't great, since X doesn't quite integrate seamlessly with Aqua.
For now I'm sticking with iTerm and checking CVS every so often. Maybe I'll even think about looking at the code.
By that reasoning, kids who print just need to be smarter. If they spend less time thinking about the answer, they'll have more time to write out their answers.
Still I don't necessarily agree with you. I wrote individual printed letters, and I never had problems running out of time on tests.