I'd like to point you to one of the highest risk factors of seriousness in Huntington's Disease - older fathers. How many other potential issues are there with having older parents? Keep in mind that the cells that create sperm (and possibly eggs, too) can get transcription errors (mutations) just like any other cell. I for one don't plan on experimenting with my progeny.
Re:live performances vs. commercial product
on
EZTree Shuts Down
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· Score: 1
I think concert and movie tickets are more like licenses (or perhaps a purchased service) than they are like buying a copyrighted product. You've purchased the opportunity to view a live performance in a venue of some degree of fitness for such (or a recording in a custom-made venue in the case of movies) once at a specified time. Of course, some artists specifically allow fan recordings of live concerts, which may imply that it is allowed to distribute them (doubtless without charging).
I think it's the duty of slashdotters in Hollywood to buy up all tickets for the opening night, whether you go or not, just so you can laugh at those guys when they can't even see the movie on opening night. How much would that suck? If it isn't as bad as the last two episodes, that is.
Hell, what am I saying? they're all camped out in front of the wrong theatre.
Being underwater prevents most technology (that we know of) from working, from fire and wheels to computers and airplanes.
The equivalent of airplanes can be made for water. All the key elements of of flight are used in submarines, as well as buoyancy. Ultimately, both use thrust to drive a body through a fluid (and yes, air is a fluid). It's also worth noting that the animal most similar to the latest military planes isn't a bird, but a fish, the ray.
The grandparent is asking for too much, and apparently so are you. Which text editor opens up when you click view source in your browser? Well, here I am in Windows XP (non-euro edition) using IE vWhatever, and when I click view source, my default text editor opens. There are other places (possibly other MS products but I can't recall off the top of my head) that insist on using Notepad, which is not my default. Now why is that application trying to use Notepad when it's clearly not my choice? Because some programmer somewhere wrote a Windows app and knew that Notepad would always be there.
So why would some other arbitrary file format be any different? People elsewhere mention that it may be due to embedding Media Player's ActiveX control, which is a whole other issue, but we have a system in place for handling default file actions based on type. If they break that, they deserve to be slapped down.
Agreed. And I've adjusted my settings to promote that immaturity. It makes for an interesting read, so long as you remember that what you're reading is doubly skewed.
Oh my God, I've accidentally logged onto the Bizarro World Slashdot!
Next there will be stories on why Apple's design sucks, why Open Source will fail, and how SCO is the greatest company in the world. And there will be no story dups!
But even on Bizarro World Slashdot, there will still be typos.
Looks more like BASIC to me than VB. Most, if not all, keywords are not allcaps in VB5 and higher, and constants are usually not allcaps either (unless referencing Win32 constants, and that's a guideline).
That's right, VB doesn't have to make your eyes bleed, which will still not stop you from writing some really bad code if you want.
The liberals are no better, on average, than any other political party. For instance: The Conservatives, the previous ruling party, had a bit of an AirBus scandal, which didn't seem to get nearly as much scandal as the Liberal sponsorship scandal. I don't know which cost us more money, and don't care. I'm just pointing out that they had their own, too.
But they also had a contract to buy new helicopters for the military due to the imminent risk of our old helicopters plummeting out of the sky due to old age. This was a major part of the Liberal platform (vote for us, and no new big helicopters for our military). They won, cancelled the contract, paid the cancellation penalty, we had helicopters plummet out of the sky due to mechanical failure (no real repercussions to the Liberal party who decided to not replace them), had more helicopters grounded, and finally got a contract for a smaller version of the helicopter that the conservatives had contracted to obtain. From what I've heard from some friends in the military, these smaller helicopters will not be able to perform all of the missions performed by the current, obselete, model. This is only one of the problems caused by party politics, and I could find more that point the finger at other parties. I'm sure that searching would find me examples of where a change in ruling parties meant that bad laws didn't get passed, too.
Now for the biggest issue I have with the former leader of the Liberal party, and which went almost ignored by the media. Although publicized, they never criticized him (Jean Chretien) to the extent this deserved. There was a meeting of international rulers in B.C., Vancouver I believe, which included some known for human rights violations. Protesters did what they do, and started waving signs and shouting slogans. They may or may not have been violent, I've never seen anything to show conclusively whether or not they did. There were some rumours that Chretien contacted the RCMP and made it clear that he didn't want anything to make the meeting unpleasant. The protest ended with some protesters getting pepper-sprayed and put in jail for some period of time (possibly less than a day). Rather than Chretien saying that he was concerned about any human rights violations, or that the situation would be investigated by the appropriate parties, we get "I put pepper on my steak." The fact that these violations occurred, shit can and does indeed happen, but that it may very well have been approved by our highest elected official, and that he got elected again after this.
So let's not say the Liberals are the supporters of popular opinions, the chamions of human rights, and pretty much anything else. They're politicians, many of whom are driven by goals that are purely personal.
Some supporting links, you can find more, with more information, if you want to look. Pepper sray incident Conservative view of the helicopter issue
I guess the only option is to scramble the signals at the source. Hmm, that might not be too original. It certainly explains a lot of the people who wear tin foil hats...
There's another (implied) requirement for patents, from the premise of incentive to innovate. They need to expire before the technology is obselete. This gives people a reason to innovate beyond their (and others') current patents. When they do, you get the technology explosion we've seen in the internal combustion engine industry, which still hasn't stopped. I haven't checked how many patents there are for that industry, or how many have already expired, but I expect the number to be significant. When they don't, you get stuff like gif vs. png/jpg. It's one thing to give a monopoly for a reasonable period to recoup your research efforts, quite another to give a monopoly on the useful lifetime of the product. Hmm, that reminds me of the big problem with copyright...
Well, you might not find that book in the library, but here's the electronic version. It has: a dash of victim info, which we can consider to be our list of potential targets; lists of known organisations which you can either use to select a place to join or a group to blame for your own activities; and a large number of terrorist actions and their efficacy over time, which may help you choose overly effective methods or plan new methods with some idea of their efficacy. By the way, I don't recommend printing it. You probably don't have enough paper.
Now, should we ban Google, pass laws saying that news can't be put online, make a list of words that we can't use in searches, or what? It's about time you realized that information for the inquiring mind is out there, and the idiots will either not read it or follow directions poorly. This has been the case since cavemen first had to say to their thicker contemporaries, "Don't use the club on your own head."
I'm sorry, but I don't think I agree with you. My disagreement falls into three categories. Any input you have on those would be appreciated.
Patents based purely on math or algorithms. This is probably the hardest one to quantify, but we're just describing an activity in the language of the universe, often as an observation of the world around us. Just about every algorithm I've come across falls into this category, with the possible exception of encryption. Even compression uses pattern matching, which is everywhere we look (after all, it's hardwired into our brains).
Patents based on software representations of the physical world. This is a little more basic than the above, and just strikes me as absurd. A great example is the spreadsheet. It drove the PC industry, and made $10k hardware worthwhile almost overnight. Certainly the software producer should have some opportunity to profit from his work, but to claim he's done something truly original is a bit farfetched. After all, Egyptions were doing something similar on papyrus sheets 5000 years ago. They just happened to be using the leading-edge technology of their time. Now, I know the spreadsheet wasn't patented (at least not by the original producer). The main reason I've heard for this is that software patents weren't being given at the time. But it is both more complex, and equally or less obvious than one-click shopping.
The fact that both patent and copyright can cover a single product. I can't think of a single other item where two different categories of intellectual property law cover essentially the same thing (an abstract method, and the abstract implementation of it), and I question the need if there are other situations. Why do we need two tools to protect one process, keeping in mind that code both describes and implements a process?
I'm a programmer, although I wouldn't claim to be anything special in the field. There are doubtless thousands of people as capable as me. But even with my limited experience, I can see real-world equivalents to so many of these patents, as well as situations where the premise of the patent system have failed (to promote the useful arts). When even the premise of a system, whether it be patents or criminal court, starts to fail, it is time for a reexamination and possibly reform.
If you try to tune in the noise, you can hear and see dead people (yeah, that's pretty bad). That's why I gave a +1 bonus modifier to funny and a +2 to troll. Now I get to see the same tired old jokes in every post.
There are two cost factors that are really afffecting them. Remedying either or both of them could turn the tide.
The first is their exclusion from a tax break for biodiesel. This looks like a gross oversight which they may be able to get corrected. The article mentions this as being equivalent to a $1/gal. reduction in production costs, which would be significant.
The second is the cost of raw materials. Animal wastes are accounting for $15 to $20 per barrel. If they can source a raw material that is either free or they can charge to process, half or more of their cost difference vs. traditional diesel will be removed. The other option would be to remove the current primary market for animal byproducts, use in animal feed. This increases the viability in Europe.
If they could get both of those changes enacted, their cost per barrel could be near zero, certainly competitive with traditional sources.
IIRC correctly, the Opteron memory controller can physically address 40 bits of physical memory...
The Department of Redundancy Department is looking for a new Director, and would like to offer you the job. Just reply with the PIN number for your primary bank card.
If you had, you would be breaking patent law. The genes in that plant are patented. If you are in Canada you would have lost, as there is already a precedent in court.
A better solution would have been to return the plants stating that you declined to accept the EULA. Then mail the producers of the plant a copy of your receipt, the return, and the receipt of the non-patent encumbered plant you replaced it with, whether you paid anything for the replacement or not (the receipt coult be for $1). Then they would know that their practices are known to at least some of the populous, and that they are not happy.
I myself try not to buy any plant that has a patent encumbrance issue. I always try to get the alternative, and will eventually do all my gardening with patent-free plants, as fast as possible.
This is an order of magnitude worse than patents in software. There is almost always more than one way to do things in software, so there's at least the possiblilty of avoiding it. But plants reproduce, and patented plants can interbreed with unpatented plants, resulting in more patented plants. That's a frightening thought.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd like to point you to one of the highest risk factors of seriousness in Huntington's Disease - older fathers. How many other potential issues are there with having older parents? Keep in mind that the cells that create sperm (and possibly eggs, too) can get transcription errors (mutations) just like any other cell. I for one don't plan on experimenting with my progeny.
I think concert and movie tickets are more like licenses (or perhaps a purchased service) than they are like buying a copyrighted product. You've purchased the opportunity to view a live performance in a venue of some degree of fitness for such (or a recording in a custom-made venue in the case of movies) once at a specified time. Of course, some artists specifically allow fan recordings of live concerts, which may imply that it is allowed to distribute them (doubtless without charging).
I think it's the duty of slashdotters in Hollywood to buy up all tickets for the opening night, whether you go or not, just so you can laugh at those guys when they can't even see the movie on opening night. How much would that suck? If it isn't as bad as the last two episodes, that is.
Hell, what am I saying? they're all camped out in front of the wrong theatre.
It's their source, they wrote it, they paid for it, they developed it, they should not have to share it with anyone they don't want to.
It's my gun. I bought it. I cleaned it. I blew someone's head off with it. I shouldn't be forced to give it to the police.
Well, isn't that the worst analogy ever. Wrong in so many ways, and I agree with the EU's actions.
Being underwater prevents most technology (that we know of) from working, from fire and wheels to computers and airplanes.
The equivalent of airplanes can be made for water. All the key elements of of flight are used in submarines, as well as buoyancy. Ultimately, both use thrust to drive a body through a fluid (and yes, air is a fluid). It's also worth noting that the animal most similar to the latest military planes isn't a bird, but a fish, the ray.
What do you call a guy with a T-Rex on a leash?
Lunch.
That's the best explanation for KFC's crispy chicken I've ever seen.
Because greedy, powerful, self-interested bastards always want to move where it's sunny and warm.
The grandparent is asking for too much, and apparently so are you. Which text editor opens up when you click view source in your browser? Well, here I am in Windows XP (non-euro edition) using IE vWhatever, and when I click view source, my default text editor opens. There are other places (possibly other MS products but I can't recall off the top of my head) that insist on using Notepad, which is not my default. Now why is that application trying to use Notepad when it's clearly not my choice? Because some programmer somewhere wrote a Windows app and knew that Notepad would always be there.
So why would some other arbitrary file format be any different? People elsewhere mention that it may be due to embedding Media Player's ActiveX control, which is a whole other issue, but we have a system in place for handling default file actions based on type. If they break that, they deserve to be slapped down.
Agreed. And I've adjusted my settings to promote that immaturity. It makes for an interesting read, so long as you remember that what you're reading is doubly skewed.
Oh my God, I've accidentally logged onto the Bizarro World Slashdot!
Next there will be stories on why Apple's design sucks, why Open Source will fail, and how SCO is the greatest company in the world. And there will be no story dups!
But even on Bizarro World Slashdot, there will still be typos.
Looks more like BASIC to me than VB. Most, if not all, keywords are not allcaps in VB5 and higher, and constants are usually not allcaps either (unless referencing Win32 constants, and that's a guideline).
That's right, VB doesn't have to make your eyes bleed, which will still not stop you from writing some really bad code if you want.
The liberals are no better, on average, than any other political party. For instance:
The Conservatives, the previous ruling party, had a bit of an AirBus scandal, which didn't seem to get nearly as much scandal as the Liberal sponsorship scandal. I don't know which cost us more money, and don't care. I'm just pointing out that they had their own, too.
But they also had a contract to buy new helicopters for the military due to the imminent risk of our old helicopters plummeting out of the sky due to old age. This was a major part of the Liberal platform (vote for us, and no new big helicopters for our military). They won, cancelled the contract, paid the cancellation penalty, we had helicopters plummet out of the sky due to mechanical failure (no real repercussions to the Liberal party who decided to not replace them), had more helicopters grounded, and finally got a contract for a smaller version of the helicopter that the conservatives had contracted to obtain. From what I've heard from some friends in the military, these smaller helicopters will not be able to perform all of the missions performed by the current, obselete, model. This is only one of the problems caused by party politics, and I could find more that point the finger at other parties. I'm sure that searching would find me examples of where a change in ruling parties meant that bad laws didn't get passed, too.
Now for the biggest issue I have with the former leader of the Liberal party, and which went almost ignored by the media. Although publicized, they never criticized him (Jean Chretien) to the extent this deserved. There was a meeting of international rulers in B.C., Vancouver I believe, which included some known for human rights violations. Protesters did what they do, and started waving signs and shouting slogans. They may or may not have been violent, I've never seen anything to show conclusively whether or not they did. There were some rumours that Chretien contacted the RCMP and made it clear that he didn't want anything to make the meeting unpleasant. The protest ended with some protesters getting pepper-sprayed and put in jail for some period of time (possibly less than a day). Rather than Chretien saying that he was concerned about any human rights violations, or that the situation would be investigated by the appropriate parties, we get "I put pepper on my steak." The fact that these violations occurred, shit can and does indeed happen, but that it may very well have been approved by our highest elected official, and that he got elected again after this.
So let's not say the Liberals are the supporters of popular opinions, the chamions of human rights, and pretty much anything else. They're politicians, many of whom are driven by goals that are purely personal.
Some supporting links, you can find more, with more information, if you want to look.
Pepper sray incident
Conservative view of the helicopter issue
I guess the only option is to scramble the signals at the source. Hmm, that might not be too original. It certainly explains a lot of the people who wear tin foil hats...
Corollary: Prison is for stupid criminals.
It was a shame to see the nice guys on the side I hoped would lose.
I had to read that twice before I realized that the nice guys you were referring to were the lawyers. Even now I'm not completely sure.
There's another (implied) requirement for patents, from the premise of incentive to innovate. They need to expire before the technology is obselete. This gives people a reason to innovate beyond their (and others') current patents. When they do, you get the technology explosion we've seen in the internal combustion engine industry, which still hasn't stopped. I haven't checked how many patents there are for that industry, or how many have already expired, but I expect the number to be significant. When they don't, you get stuff like gif vs. png/jpg. It's one thing to give a monopoly for a reasonable period to recoup your research efforts, quite another to give a monopoly on the useful lifetime of the product. Hmm, that reminds me of the big problem with copyright...
Well, you might not find that book in the library, but here's the electronic version. It has: a dash of victim info, which we can consider to be our list of potential targets; lists of known organisations which you can either use to select a place to join or a group to blame for your own activities; and a large number of terrorist actions and their efficacy over time, which may help you choose overly effective methods or plan new methods with some idea of their efficacy. By the way, I don't recommend printing it. You probably don't have enough paper.
Now, should we ban Google, pass laws saying that news can't be put online, make a list of words that we can't use in searches, or what? It's about time you realized that information for the inquiring mind is out there, and the idiots will either not read it or follow directions poorly. This has been the case since cavemen first had to say to their thicker contemporaries, "Don't use the club on your own head."
This is probably the hardest one to quantify, but we're just describing an activity in the language of the universe, often as an observation of the world around us. Just about every algorithm I've come across falls into this category, with the possible exception of encryption. Even compression uses pattern matching, which is everywhere we look (after all, it's hardwired into our brains).
This is a little more basic than the above, and just strikes me as absurd. A great example is the spreadsheet. It drove the PC industry, and made $10k hardware worthwhile almost overnight. Certainly the software producer should have some opportunity to profit from his work, but to claim he's done something truly original is a bit farfetched. After all, Egyptions were doing something similar on papyrus sheets 5000 years ago. They just happened to be using the leading-edge technology of their time. Now, I know the spreadsheet wasn't patented (at least not by the original producer). The main reason I've heard for this is that software patents weren't being given at the time. But it is both more complex, and equally or less obvious than one-click shopping.
I can't think of a single other item where two different categories of intellectual property law cover essentially the same thing (an abstract method, and the abstract implementation of it), and I question the need if there are other situations. Why do we need two tools to protect one process, keeping in mind that code both describes and implements a process?
I'm a programmer, although I wouldn't claim to be anything special in the field. There are doubtless thousands of people as capable as me. But even with my limited experience, I can see real-world equivalents to so many of these patents, as well as situations where the premise of the patent system have failed (to promote the useful arts). When even the premise of a system, whether it be patents or criminal court, starts to fail, it is time for a reexamination and possibly reform.
If you try to tune in the noise, you can hear and see dead people (yeah, that's pretty bad). That's why I gave a +1 bonus modifier to funny and a +2 to troll. Now I get to see the same tired old jokes in every post.
There are two cost factors that are really afffecting them. Remedying either or both of them could turn the tide.
The first is their exclusion from a tax break for biodiesel. This looks like a gross oversight which they may be able to get corrected. The article mentions this as being equivalent to a $1/gal. reduction in production costs, which would be significant.
The second is the cost of raw materials. Animal wastes are accounting for $15 to $20 per barrel. If they can source a raw material that is either free or they can charge to process, half or more of their cost difference vs. traditional diesel will be removed. The other option would be to remove the current primary market for animal byproducts, use in animal feed. This increases the viability in Europe.
If they could get both of those changes enacted, their cost per barrel could be near zero, certainly competitive with traditional sources.
Well, I hold the patent on starving, but I'm pretty lenient with it. My license fee is all your worldly possessions once you've finished starving.
There, the dead horse has been thoroughly been flogged.
MS announced today their plans to patent the string object, the ampersand, coffee, comfy chairs, and the letter 'T'.
While that may be their first patent for a letter, thay already have an unregistered trademark on the letters "F" and "U".
IIRC correctly, the Opteron memory controller can physically address 40 bits of physical memory...
The Department of Redundancy Department is looking for a new Director, and would like to offer you the job. Just reply with the PIN number for your primary bank card.
If you had, you would be breaking patent law. The genes in that plant are patented. If you are in Canada you would have lost, as there is already a precedent in court.
A better solution would have been to return the plants stating that you declined to accept the EULA. Then mail the producers of the plant a copy of your receipt, the return, and the receipt of the non-patent encumbered plant you replaced it with, whether you paid anything for the replacement or not (the receipt coult be for $1). Then they would know that their practices are known to at least some of the populous, and that they are not happy.
I myself try not to buy any plant that has a patent encumbrance issue. I always try to get the alternative, and will eventually do all my gardening with patent-free plants, as fast as possible.
This is an order of magnitude worse than patents in software. There is almost always more than one way to do things in software, so there's at least the possiblilty of avoiding it. But plants reproduce, and patented plants can interbreed with unpatented plants, resulting in more patented plants. That's a frightening thought.