Out of the thousands of patents filed around the world each year we hear about what 40 or 50. What % do you really think fall under the legal extortion banner.
Lets say I'm a clothing manufacturer and I'm good at the creative part of design, the technical side of logistics and manufacture and at marketing to wholesalers.
Why would I learn a whole new detailed skill of software development at all. Even hiring someone to manage that whole side of it has significant impacts on my time. I'm not going to buy cheap home style sewing machines and try to alter them to sew at industrial levels so why should I do the same thing with software.
Most systems work as designed and in my admittedly limited experience problems are as often associated with how systems are implemented and operated in individual businesses rather than with the software itself.
I agree that vendors shoot themselves in the foot sometimes. If you don't think elite buyers drive feature creep look at some of the shareware software sites forums. You see constant complaints about the lack of upgrades to software that works perfectly well at what it was originally designed to do. Not bugfixes but tweaks and additions.
And the developers seem to go along with these requests because
1. no one wants to buy a software product that hasn't changed for three years. and
2. having shelled out their $20 for a lifetime licence buyers expect to get new improved versions regularly for $0.00 or at worst for free.
I think however that retail buyers are also trapped in the upgrade cycle by their acceptance of the 1st point above. How do they justify spending huge money on a product that hasn't changed in three years when a competitor tells you his version is new and improved and simpler to operate. We all know how fast thing change in this high tech world, don't we.
Apparently Radiohead consider it to be art, rather than marketing
You speak as if an artist should not be concerned about money. What if they consider it to be their job. And they are just very good at their job and have thought of a better way of marketing their product.
This would be indistinguishable to anyone who's a fan of their work.
If that's how you remember the good old days then you obviously weren't there. Lets say, the 70's. 10 years of 10,000 albums a year (100,000 albums conservatively) and you reckon they were all killer no filler.
I could name maybe 10 that I heard that were like that. And oddly enough you would probably disagree with me about them as well.
One of them might have the album. Or if you have a few friends, you could pool your family fortunes and buy a copy between you and if some of you like it, then go and buy your own copies. If none likes it you haven't wasted as much money.
If you need help in working out how much each of you need to pay i'm sure a post to/. will get you an answer.
As a last resort look around to find one of those rare record shops that have have listening posts where you can probably listen to the whole cd or at least a sample of the tracks.
Go to mp3.com or whatever. Artists are givng away music or selling it track by track all the time and have been for a few years now.
And none of them are famous or making millions. A few may be making some money but you won't hear about it unless you hang around there and download and listen to a lot of rubbish.
Word of mouth is great but impractical as the sole source of info on new music. And other ways of getting music in front of people cost money. Record companies may be bastards and get overpaid but they perform a service. They filter out the real crap. They get it wrong both ways occasionally but to some extent its a personal taste. I don't like n'sync but millions do and I'm not going to call them retarded because I don't like their music. I like bonnie prince billy and I don't care if you do or not.
The exception to this is the small record company but they never expect to sell millions of records. The Sleater-Kinneys of the record business are the exception not the new rule. I don't think you would have heard about Radiohead if you relied on word of mouth on the Internet.
As for commodity, people go the the record shop with money to spend. I suspect they will spend it rather than take it home. So there will be some brand substitution going on. It's not like you go out each week to buy a Madonna record and 'gosh, no new madonna record this week. i guess i'll just go home and listen to the old one again.'
Won't they see the new Norah Jones record and say' gosh she looks just like madonna only more pretty, more younger and more sexy and i heard her nice new song on the radio so i'll buy that'.
I know what I'm talking about man. I'm hip to all the latest teen lingo. Word.
I don't think this is a rocket where propulsion is a result of the ejection of mass; rather a transfer of energy to the payload so it doesn't matter where the payload goes, the orbit decays because the tether has less forward speed and so drops towards the centre of the earth to conserve umm one of the many things that it must conserve to obey the laws of physics. Is it angular something.
Its 4.30pm here and I'm going home for a beer soon so I'm starting to forget all those things I drink to forget. Weird how this is one of them seeing as I'm an Accountant.
Point taken. Apart from the US and maybe UK most Australians are limited. And I shouldn't confuse the people in America with the goverment structures in America. Generally when I say America I mean the structures and Americans to mean the people.
Even then if I'm not talking about a particular person its more probably a reference to the culture as I see it. Anyway I've made my point. Lets go find something important to bitch about.
And by coincidence the records were all copyrighted to someone (probably at the record company but certainly not the musicians) and by golly you better not try to copy them and sell them.
did you read even the/. summary let alone the article? If the driver fails to respond to the prompt from the system further prompts are issued by the system. As soon as the driver responds as you scramble for an exit to the left or right the system stops prompting. It will in fact stop braking by itself if it had started doing that. As soon as you turn the wheel the system will realize the impending rear end collision will not occur because you're not moving towards the car in front anymore and look for the next accident based on proximity and relative speed.
MonopolyA situation in which a single company owns all or nearly all of the market for a given type of product or service. This would happen in the case that there is a barrier to entry into the industry that allows the single company to operate without competition (for example, vast economies of scale, barriers to entry, or governmental regulation). In such an industry structure, the producer will often produce a volume that is less than the amount which would maximize social welfare.
From InvestorWords.com. There are definitions of pure monopoly that say a single entity only can operate in a market but then you start to argue about what a market is. And as soon as a competitor enters there is no monopoly by definition. The above definition accepts that a single entity can be so large as to effectively operate without competition even though there are other suppliers. A key concept in MS case was the abuse of monopolistic market power to prevent competitors from either entering the market or staying in it. So in terms of this definition MS was a monopoly and did abuse its market powers. The above definition does not allow more than one dominant player and so with 4 or 5 major pharmas it is hard to call them all monopolies.
As I suggested it might be said that they form a cartel
A group of companies or countries which collectively attempt to affect market prices by controlling production and marketing. Illegal in the U.S. also called trust.
or that the industry is an oligopoly
A market dominated by a small number of participants who are able to collectively exert control over supply and market prices.
but given the number of big pharma enitities and their diverse ownership I personally don't think so.
So now you know.
But don't worry too much. Just use 'cartel' next time you abuse them and everyone will mistake you for someone with an education.
They may not have done anything before 9/11 because they couldn't but their attitude didn't change after then, only their ability to do something. I suggest that a different administration with a different attitude would have reacted differently and maybe done Afganistan over but I seriously doubt that the US would be in Iraq right now.
We've always done as we pleased
The difference now is that in the past the US worked within international groups and at least gave the impression that it actually listened to what the world community thought.
The Rant Begins Nowwwwwwww..
And please,the western nations did not merely go along with the us because they were being protected from the USSR. Believe it or not they actually share common values associated with democracy, human rights and the free market economy. They still do. They don't think the US is like the USSR at all. They aren't ignorant.
Look, I am in Australia and I read the papers and watch the news and all that. Our mass media carries about twice the amount of foreign news than US does. And most of that additional stuff is about the US or how the US effects other countries. As a result I know a great deal about the way America operates and I don't mean from watching Friends or even West Wing.
It's big news in Australia when shit happens in the US. It's not big news in the US when shit happens in Australia and I doubt the educated US citizen knows anything substantive about our political system, economy or social enviroment. That is not a value judgement, just an observation. Whereas I could hold an intelligent conversation about the upcoming US presidential campaign without too much trouble the average US citizen wouldn't even know if we had a President.
The problem is that the Americans don't seem to care about the rest of the world. And that's not a comfortable feeling when the person not caring is heavily armed. (Maybe in that respect there is a feeling that you're like the Soviets.)
The rant is over.... nowwwwwwwwwwww. (Apologies to the Lips)
you should read the box closely. I was looking at the canon lide 20, 30 and 50 and the 50 is a hi-speed usb model but the 20 and 30 arent (i think from the box). I would have been pissed off if i got the 20 or 30 expecting the higher speed.
But you have to be real careful as its not obvious and it really is in fine print on the back.
Calling someone a lame ripoff of Linkin Park is a paradox and a tautology at the same time. It creates its own black hole as you think about it and all sensible thought disappears as you consider the vacuum that exists their heads.
God, I hate Linkin Park. And don't start me on Limp Biskit.
shows a tendency towards isolationism until they get dragged into world affairs.
I agree that that was the case in the past but even ignoring 9/11 the current administration has anything but an isolationist attitude. Read the charter for a new American century and tell the non-us how that is isolationist. Read who signed it and ask what positions of power they hold.
This is not a conspiracy. They have stated quite clearly what they want to do. And it ain't isolation.
Since the demise of the only other superpower the us appears to be starting to think that it must be right in all that it does and so it will do as it pleases.
Then they eliminate the problem that dragged them into the world.
I think I in common with many outside the US have less and less confidence in the US decision makers who determine just what the 'problem' is that needs to be eliminated. We are allowed to disagree aren't we.
Both have a recepie, both make money out of baking and selling the outcome
Do you think the drug companies have a book somewhere with all the drug recipies in it and every now and then someone thinks 'I wonder if there is a recipie for a drug that enhances erections' and pick out viagra and says 'I saw it first so i'll make this one' to all the other drug companies and they say 'ok, fair enough, i wonder what else is in the book that i can make, say a recipie for an anti cancer drug, yeah that'd be good'
I also notice that the drug manufacturers are amongst the biggest an most monopolistic of companies
A monopoly usually implies one company. Given there is more than one drug company there can hardly be a monopoly. Perhaps you mean an oligopoly. or cartel. Possibly but less clear. Many new and innovative drugs are created by small companies all over the world and successfully commercialized by them without the big pharma companies.
they could do this by ensuring that any new *brand* of drug has to go through trials and test, just like the original.
I don't know if this is significant but the statement says nothing about Linux except that SCO has made statements about it.
Look at the statement and in the second para IBM says clearly that it is defending it's AIX customers. The IBM licence for UNIX that as reflected in AIX is probably as rock solid as they suggest ie. irrevocable, never ending and all that.
They do not state that they will defend Linux even if it is implied.
Would not the actual speed of each of the cars not to mention their relative masses affect where the two cars came to rest. They don't simply stop at the point of impact irrespective of how heavy each car was and how fast each was going.
I assume that is what the poster meant by thew algebra.
As well would there not be a difference indicated by the inertial data from airbags and seatbelts. Your car is only stopping from 55 to zero.
I think the point is that there is probably less problems with the idea than we think (though there are undoubtedly more than we have so far imagined)
I think that their use in cars for accident investigation might have some benefits but even flight recorders don't help 100% of the time and they have a lot more stuff recorded and teams of engineers going over the data.
If all you get from the car recorders is speed then you still rely on the two drivers about when the light turned red and who wasn't looking at the road.
As for privacy and self incrimination, if ask truck drivers to log their time behind the wheel so we don't have as many cranked up hallucinating maniacs behind the wheel of 50 ton trucks bearing down on us then using car data to see what happened in an accident is OK by me.
Whats next, No you can't look at the accident scene, those are my private skid marks which may tend to incrimate me"
Slashdot Mirror
Out of the thousands of patents filed around the world each year we hear about what 40 or 50. What % do you really think fall under the legal extortion banner.
Why would I learn a whole new detailed skill of software development at all. Even hiring someone to manage that whole side of it has significant impacts on my time. I'm not going to buy cheap home style sewing machines and try to alter them to sew at industrial levels so why should I do the same thing with software.
Most systems work as designed and in my admittedly limited experience problems are as often associated with how systems are implemented and operated in individual businesses rather than with the software itself.
And the developers seem to go along with these requests because
1. no one wants to buy a software product that hasn't changed for three years. and
2. having shelled out their $20 for a lifetime licence buyers expect to get new improved versions regularly for $0.00 or at worst for free.
I think however that retail buyers are also trapped in the upgrade cycle by their acceptance of the 1st point above. How do they justify spending huge money on a product that hasn't changed in three years when a competitor tells you his version is new and improved and simpler to operate. We all know how fast thing change in this high tech world, don't we.
You speak as if an artist should not be concerned about money. What if they consider it to be their job. And they are just very good at their job and have thought of a better way of marketing their product.
This would be indistinguishable to anyone who's a fan of their work.
I could name maybe 10 that I heard that were like that. And oddly enough you would probably disagree with me about them as well.
And lets not even mention the 60's.
If you need help in working out how much each of you need to pay i'm sure a post to /. will get you an answer.
As a last resort look around to find one of those rare record shops that have have listening posts where you can probably listen to the whole cd or at least a sample of the tracks.
And none of them are famous or making millions. A few may be making some money but you won't hear about it unless you hang around there and download and listen to a lot of rubbish.
Word of mouth is great but impractical as the sole source of info on new music. And other ways of getting music in front of people cost money. Record companies may be bastards and get overpaid but they perform a service. They filter out the real crap. They get it wrong both ways occasionally but to some extent its a personal taste. I don't like n'sync but millions do and I'm not going to call them retarded because I don't like their music. I like bonnie prince billy and I don't care if you do or not.
The exception to this is the small record company but they never expect to sell millions of records. The Sleater-Kinneys of the record business are the exception not the new rule. I don't think you would have heard about Radiohead if you relied on word of mouth on the Internet.
As for commodity, people go the the record shop with money to spend. I suspect they will spend it rather than take it home. So there will be some brand substitution going on. It's not like you go out each week to buy a Madonna record and 'gosh, no new madonna record this week. i guess i'll just go home and listen to the old one again.'
Won't they see the new Norah Jones record and say' gosh she looks just like madonna only more pretty, more younger and more sexy and i heard her nice new song on the radio so i'll buy that'.
I know what I'm talking about man. I'm hip to all the latest teen lingo. Word.
Maybe if people paid for all the music they listened to, artists wouldn't mind.
Its 4.30pm here and I'm going home for a beer soon so I'm starting to forget all those things I drink to forget. Weird how this is one of them seeing as I'm an Accountant.
He's in Australia. He's just celebrating Friday afternoon. Nothing to do with patents.
Even then if I'm not talking about a particular person its more probably a reference to the culture as I see it. Anyway I've made my point. Lets go find something important to bitch about.
And by coincidence the records were all copyrighted to someone (probably at the record company but certainly not the musicians) and by golly you better not try to copy them and sell them.
did you read even the /. summary let alone the article? If the driver fails to respond to the prompt from the system further prompts are issued by the system. As soon as the driver responds as you scramble for an exit to the left or right the system stops prompting. It will in fact stop braking by itself if it had started doing that. As soon as you turn the wheel the system will realize the impending rear end collision will not occur because you're not moving towards the car in front anymore and look for the next accident based on proximity and relative speed.
They must like you. If I'd said that I'd get a -4 Off-topic. Heck that's what I would have given it.
Monopoly A situation in which a single company owns all or nearly all of the market for a given type of product or service. This would happen in the case that there is a barrier to entry into the industry that allows the single company to operate without competition (for example, vast economies of scale, barriers to entry, or governmental regulation). In such an industry structure, the producer will often produce a volume that is less than the amount which would maximize social welfare.
From InvestorWords.com. There are definitions of pure monopoly that say a single entity only can operate in a market but then you start to argue about what a market is. And as soon as a competitor enters there is no monopoly by definition. The above definition accepts that a single entity can be so large as to effectively operate without competition even though there are other suppliers. A key concept in MS case was the abuse of monopolistic market power to prevent competitors from either entering the market or staying in it. So in terms of this definition MS was a monopoly and did abuse its market powers. The above definition does not allow more than one dominant player and so with 4 or 5 major pharmas it is hard to call them all monopolies.
As I suggested it might be said that they form a cartel
A group of companies or countries which collectively attempt to affect market prices by controlling production and marketing. Illegal in the U.S. also called trust.
or that the industry is an oligopoly
A market dominated by a small number of participants who are able to collectively exert control over supply and market prices.
but given the number of big pharma enitities and their diverse ownership I personally don't think so.
So now you know.
But don't worry too much. Just use 'cartel' next time you abuse them and everyone will mistake you for someone with an education.
We've always done as we pleased
The difference now is that in the past the US worked within international groups and at least gave the impression that it actually listened to what the world community thought.
The Rant Begins Nowwwwwwww..
And please,the western nations did not merely go along with the us because they were being protected from the USSR. Believe it or not they actually share common values associated with democracy, human rights and the free market economy. They still do. They don't think the US is like the USSR at all. They aren't ignorant.
Look, I am in Australia and I read the papers and watch the news and all that. Our mass media carries about twice the amount of foreign news than US does. And most of that additional stuff is about the US or how the US effects other countries. As a result I know a great deal about the way America operates and I don't mean from watching Friends or even West Wing.
It's big news in Australia when shit happens in the US. It's not big news in the US when shit happens in Australia and I doubt the educated US citizen knows anything substantive about our political system, economy or social enviroment. That is not a value judgement, just an observation. Whereas I could hold an intelligent conversation about the upcoming US presidential campaign without too much trouble the average US citizen wouldn't even know if we had a President.
The problem is that the Americans don't seem to care about the rest of the world. And that's not a comfortable feeling when the person not caring is heavily armed. (Maybe in that respect there is a feeling that you're like the Soviets.)
The rant is over .... nowwwwwwwwwwww. (Apologies to the Lips)
But you have to be real careful as its not obvious and it really is in fine print on the back.
And that's where you lost all credibility.
Calling someone a lame ripoff of Linkin Park is a paradox and a tautology at the same time. It creates its own black hole as you think about it and all sensible thought disappears as you consider the vacuum that exists their heads.
God, I hate Linkin Park. And don't start me on Limp Biskit.
I agree that that was the case in the past but even ignoring 9/11 the current administration has anything but an isolationist attitude. Read the charter for a new American century and tell the non-us how that is isolationist. Read who signed it and ask what positions of power they hold.
This is not a conspiracy. They have stated quite clearly what they want to do. And it ain't isolation.
Since the demise of the only other superpower the us appears to be starting to think that it must be right in all that it does and so it will do as it pleases.
Then they eliminate the problem that dragged them into the world.
I think I in common with many outside the US have less and less confidence in the US decision makers who determine just what the 'problem' is that needs to be eliminated. We are allowed to disagree aren't we.
Do you think the drug companies have a book somewhere with all the drug recipies in it and every now and then someone thinks 'I wonder if there is a recipie for a drug that enhances erections' and pick out viagra and says 'I saw it first so i'll make this one' to all the other drug companies and they say 'ok, fair enough, i wonder what else is in the book that i can make, say a recipie for an anti cancer drug, yeah that'd be good'
I also notice that the drug manufacturers are amongst the biggest an most monopolistic of companies
A monopoly usually implies one company. Given there is more than one drug company there can hardly be a monopoly. Perhaps you mean an oligopoly. or cartel. Possibly but less clear. Many new and innovative drugs are created by small companies all over the world and successfully commercialized by them without the big pharma companies.
they could do this by ensuring that any new *brand* of drug has to go through trials and test, just like the original.
Yeah, that would make them cheaper.
come on give me another flamebait
Flybait more like it.
But then the distinct lack of decent patent examiners is what got us into this mess in the first place.
Look at the statement and in the second para IBM says clearly that it is defending it's AIX customers. The IBM licence for UNIX that as reflected in AIX is probably as rock solid as they suggest ie. irrevocable, never ending and all that.
They do not state that they will defend Linux even if it is implied.
I'm not sure what "All animals are equal but some are more equal than others" has to do with this.
I assume that is what the poster meant by thew algebra.
As well would there not be a difference indicated by the inertial data from airbags and seatbelts. Your car is only stopping from 55 to zero.
I think the point is that there is probably less problems with the idea than we think (though there are undoubtedly more than we have so far imagined)
I think that their use in cars for accident investigation might have some benefits but even flight recorders don't help 100% of the time and they have a lot more stuff recorded and teams of engineers going over the data.
If all you get from the car recorders is speed then you still rely on the two drivers about when the light turned red and who wasn't looking at the road.
As for privacy and self incrimination, if ask truck drivers to log their time behind the wheel so we don't have as many cranked up hallucinating maniacs behind the wheel of 50 ton trucks bearing down on us then using car data to see what happened in an accident is OK by me.
Whats next, No you can't look at the accident scene, those are my private skid marks which may tend to incrimate me"