Personally, I'd put Microsoft's initial monopoly down to: * Making "good enough" software * Getting their software pre-installed on computers * Achieving ubiquity before the Internet/networking really took off (software is easier when you don't consider security) * Bob
Perhaps it's the difference between inviting people into your walled garden, and building a wall around the people in your already highly populated garden?
Climate change won't be an existential threat to humankind. It might cause us severe problems but it will not obliterate us from the face of the Earth. It is not like the Earth is suddenly becoming inhabitable for humans due to global warming.
I am waiting and waiting for the Linux community to come to this realization that desktop linux has to take into account a mouseless touch-screen userbase that is set to grow rapidly, especially once GNU/Linux distros appear on more tablet PC's.
Where have you been these past couple of years? Gnome 3? Unity? KDE Plasma Active?
Yes, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is my roguelike of choice. But being the heathen that I am, these days I play online with the "webtiles" version, rather than deal with an ASCII(/Unicode) UI.
But, hey, if the douches in Washington can play the "intellectual property" game, then why not some Africans? The United States doesn't have a monopoly on douchebaggery, does it?
HTC now is (as far as I know) now the only company with full access to apple's patents.
Interesting thought. If there's one thing we've learnt about Apple, it's that they don't like to share. I can't imagine that full cross-licensing of their patents (current and future!) was a desirable outcome for Apple, going into this litigation.
Either Apple were set to lose, badly, or there's scheming afoot...
But the area we can actively focus on is far more restricted than our field of vision as a whole.
Widescreen is great for action games, where peripheral vision can mean the difference between pwn and pwn'd. For actually doing work, having things in your peripheral vision is just a distraction.
Not true. There is/was a website (jalbreakme.com, IIRC) which used a PDF vulnerability in iOS to jailbreak iPhones, just by clicking a button on their site using the iOS web browser.
The free market is about freedom for corporations; to sell whatever crap they want, however they want. If corporations cannot maximise profit by colluding to artificially maintain high prices and low wages, then the market is clearly not free!
NPCs are computer controlled entities with a limited set of abilities, usually scripted. Mobs are a subset of this, the (fuzzy) distinction being that NPCs are generally passive to the player, whereas mobs can be hostile (often their only purpose). Bots are computer controlled players; they can do everything a normal player can do (subject to AI limitations), and play the same role in-game as a normal player.
That only works for business which don't actually produce anything (non-practising entities, aka trolls), where the cost of losing is approximately zero. If you actually make practical use of a patent you hold, and a larger company infringes on it, the chances are that your small company infringes on FAR more of their patents than they do yours. The end result would be a counter-suit, and eventually one more small business filing for bankruptcy.
Without such patents, a large company can indeed "rip off" a small one. But so can a small company "rip off" the larger one. Thereby, in theory, both companies thrive or die based on their ability to compete in the market, and not the courtroom.
And FWIW, the $1billion (preliminary) Apple-Samsung judgement was about design patents and trade dress. Which have little to do with innovation, and everything to do with differentiation (see also: trademarks). For all the complaining nerds do about people confusing "Star Wars" and "Star Trek", because they're both "in space", and have "star" in their names; you would think they'd take more care not to confuse and conflate "design patents" with "utility patents", just because they're both "in court" and have "patent" in their names...
I was amused to see that, judging from the pictures in the Sydney Morning Herald article, Samsung was the first to implement tables with rounded corners.
It was very nice of you to offer the flesh off your hands, but how do you expect him to remove them, chill them, and extract the protein, with duelling pistols?
linux... userbase who are used to stuff being free
Even if someone is "used to stuff being free", it does not necessarily follow that they are therefore not willing to pay for quality work.
The (albeit anecdotal) number of Macbook-weilding Linux users around, and the consistently higher prices paid (voluntarily!) by Linux "Humble Bundle" purchasers, attests to the fact that not every Penguin is a Freedom zealot.
If the key (password) is only in your head, then supplying it is an admission of ownership or knowledge of the contents of a private "digital safe" - ie. self-incrimination.
Handing over the key to a physical safe is an admission only that you had the key.
As I understand it, SOPA will only apply to non-US-controlled domains; those which ICE et al can't just seize. So.com and.net would be safe from SOPA (Verisign is a US company), but others like.org,.se,.uk,.tv would not be so excluded.
Slashdot Mirror
Videodrome for the Internet generation?
Personally, I'd put Microsoft's initial monopoly down to:
* Making "good enough" software
* Getting their software pre-installed on computers
* Achieving ubiquity before the Internet/networking really took off (software is easier when you don't consider security)
* Bob
Perhaps it's the difference between inviting people into your walled garden, and building a wall around the people in your already highly populated garden?
Ask a Venusian how it worked out for them.
Where have you been these past couple of years? Gnome 3? Unity? KDE Plasma Active?
Yes, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is my roguelike of choice. But being the heathen that I am, these days I play online with the "webtiles" version, rather than deal with an ASCII(/Unicode) UI.
No, but I'll wager they have a patent.
The English alphabet doesn't have "Zee".
Interesting thought.
If there's one thing we've learnt about Apple, it's that they don't like to share. I can't imagine that full cross-licensing of their patents (current and future!) was a desirable outcome for Apple, going into this litigation.
Either Apple were set to lose, badly, or there's scheming afoot...
Because this one is featured on Slashdot, so has clearly passed through the site's stringent editorial checks for quality and veracity.
But the area we can actively focus on is far more restricted than our field of vision as a whole.
Widescreen is great for action games, where peripheral vision can mean the difference between pwn and pwn'd. For actually doing work, having things in your peripheral vision is just a distraction.
Patents have "on the internet" to make old things new, while geeks and nerds have "outside the US".
Heck, my BBC B could produce robotic sounding speech.
"Welcome to speeech. From Superioar Software"
Not true.
There is/was a website (jalbreakme.com, IIRC) which used a PDF vulnerability in iOS to jailbreak iPhones, just by clicking a button on their site using the iOS web browser.
No, no, no, you've got it all wrong!
The free market is about freedom for corporations; to sell whatever crap they want, however they want. If corporations cannot maximise profit by colluding to artificially maintain high prices and low wages, then the market is clearly not free!
Do you know why food products provide accurate lists of ingredients on the packaging in the first place?
That's right; legislation.
Generally speaking, in my gaming experience:
NPCs are computer controlled entities with a limited set of abilities, usually scripted. Mobs are a subset of this, the (fuzzy) distinction being that NPCs are generally passive to the player, whereas mobs can be hostile (often their only purpose).
Bots are computer controlled players; they can do everything a normal player can do (subject to AI limitations), and play the same role in-game as a normal player.
That only works for business which don't actually produce anything (non-practising entities, aka trolls), where the cost of losing is approximately zero. If you actually make practical use of a patent you hold, and a larger company infringes on it, the chances are that your small company infringes on FAR more of their patents than they do yours.
The end result would be a counter-suit, and eventually one more small business filing for bankruptcy.
Without such patents, a large company can indeed "rip off" a small one. But so can a small company "rip off" the larger one. Thereby, in theory, both companies thrive or die based on their ability to compete in the market, and not the courtroom.
And FWIW, the $1billion (preliminary) Apple-Samsung judgement was about design patents and trade dress. Which have little to do with innovation, and everything to do with differentiation (see also: trademarks).
For all the complaining nerds do about people confusing "Star Wars" and "Star Trek", because they're both "in space", and have "star" in their names; you would think they'd take more care not to confuse and conflate "design patents" with "utility patents", just because they're both "in court" and have "patent" in their names...
I was amused to see that, judging from the pictures in the Sydney Morning Herald article, Samsung was the first to implement tables with rounded corners.
I think it's not that most people can't tell the difference between 720p and 1080p, but that they just don't care.
It was very nice of you to offer the flesh off your hands, but how do you expect him to remove them, chill them, and extract the protein, with duelling pistols?
RHEL = RedHat Enterprise Linux.
"Enterprise" is the opposite of "fun".
Even if someone is "used to stuff being free", it does not necessarily follow that they are therefore not willing to pay for quality work.
The (albeit anecdotal) number of Macbook-weilding Linux users around, and the consistently higher prices paid (voluntarily!) by Linux "Humble Bundle" purchasers, attests to the fact that not every Penguin is a Freedom zealot.
My interpretation, as a non-lawyer:
If the key (password) is only in your head, then supplying it is an admission of ownership or knowledge of the contents of a private "digital safe" - ie. self-incrimination.
Handing over the key to a physical safe is an admission only that you had the key.
As I understand it, SOPA will only apply to non-US-controlled domains; those which ICE et al can't just seize. .com and .net would be safe from SOPA (Verisign is a US company), but others like .org, .se, .uk, .tv would not be so excluded.
So