What they are saying, is the far more delicate argument that certain things are patentable, and those things may have software as part of them.
To support you conclusion: this has always been the case for "software patents" which is a misnomer. The even more general version of your conclusion is: a "software patent" is that the thing a general-purpose computer becomes as a result of running given software.
For example, if back in the day, VisiCorp had patented a spreadsheet application, what they really would have patented would be something along the lines of "an aparatus for performing calculations using fomrulae arranged in a grid on a screen allowing user input to alter the results of said formulae in real-time" (or some such).
The key word to note is "aparatus." If you came along and made another aparatus that did exactly the same thing using only springs and gears, you'd be infringing on the patent because a patent protects the idea itself, not its expression. The computer/software combination is merely the "preferred embodiment" of said patent.
The Iraqi insurgents are giving our military hell with rifles and marksmanship skills highly inferior to what is possessed by the average American gun nut. So I'd say the 2nd Amendment is still pretty damned relevent insofar was resisting the government with force is concerned.
Except we're not talking about "resisting the government." The "failsafe" argument for the 2nd amendment is about overthrowing the government. If something similar were to happen in the US, it would be the same protracted quagmire that's happening in Iraq now, but the US government itself would stay very much intact.
Want another example? Just look at the IRA. They've been at it for decades and the British government is still around.
I never said anything about altering the course of American history. I said you can't overthrow the government. The US government didn't cease to exist after presidents were shot.
Unfortunately, the NRA is too powerful a lobby for that to happen any time soon.
I suspect that it would be difficult to win an argument claiming that firearms would be ineffective against a modern military, though (which seems to be what you're saying elsewhere).
We'll have to agree to disagree on that point then; but my complaint about using that as a justification for the 2nd amendment still stands: if you really want to get a gun to overthrow your government (an act that is allready illegal according to said government), then I don't see why having guns also be illegal would hinder you in any way. Compared to treason/terrorism, illegal gun possesion is small potatoes.
If the government gets enough out of control, then it's not going to be "you and a few hundred of your buddies," it's going to be "several hundred thousand, possibly several million angry and armed civilians."
Again, if it gets that bad and citizens get that angry, do you really think someone will stand up and say, "Hold on a minute: we can't revolt! The 2nd amendment was just repealed." From the crowd: "Awwww. Well, I guess it's time to go home then." Again, if things get that bad, what the government you're trying to overthrow says you can or can not do will be irrelevant at that point. Therefore, the sole reason claimed for the 2nd amendment to continue to exist is just silly.
Even if it were true that civilians couldn't overthrow the government, it doesn't follow that therefore civilians shouldn't be allowed to have guns.
If you go back and re-read what I wrote, I never said anything against or even about gun ownership. My comment was about the "failsafe" justification for the 2nd amendment.
If your justification were instead along the lines of protecting your home against intruders, I'd buy that. But the whole "failsafe against the goverment" argument just makes no sense in this century.
The military did a blind poll of Marines asking if they would fire on civilians that were refusing to turn in their guns. More said they would join the protest then said they would fire.
Without seeing the actual data from the poll, it's a vague statement. A lot depends on how exactly the question was phrased. There's also a huge difference between refusing to turn in your gun (that you presumeably have on your person somewhere) and actually pointing it at a Marine. Anybody (Marine or not) having a gun pointed at him should assume it's meant to be used and if it's you or him, you're going down.
Additionally, any armed service officer isn't trained to think; he's trained to obey orders. He's not going to take the time to listen to your argument and try to understand why you're protesting and mull it over before making a decision whether to put a bullet in your chest if you're aiming a gun at him.
An armed man is a citizen, an unarmed man is a subject.
And an unarmed, skinny, Indian guy dressed in a dhoti defeated the British Empire. Not bad for a mere subject. (If he had a gun, the British would have shot him dead in the street.)
Do you honestly believe the civil rights protests were gun free? They were smart enough not to brandish them, but I guarantee you the protesters were in some cases armed.
Any who had guns certainly didn't use them otherwise it would have given the police just cause to fire on the crowds. So if they never used them (nor even give any indication thay they were armed as you suggest), then the outcome would have been no different had they not had them at all.
Do you honestly believe that the men and women of the military, who come from those very same civilian families they've sworn to defend, would turn their arms on their own families, friends, and neighbors just because they were ordered to do so?
If those people were pointing guns at the military? Absolutely. Once you pick up a gun and point it at a soldier, you cease being a friend and are instead seen as a lone wacko or, if there's many of you, a cult. In post-9/11 lingo, you'd all be considered terrorists. You'd all either be captured or shot and there'd be stories on Dateline NBC interviewing your friends and family who'd say things like they never truly knew you.
Contrast that with the gun-free protests of the civil rights moment. How far do you think they would have gotten if they were carrying guns? The police used fire-hoses and tear-gas in some cases where the protestors did not have guns. If they had guns, you can bet the police would have used bullets.
... if conditions became bad enough that hundreds or even thousands of civilians felt compelled to rise up in arms...
The amount of coordination needed to pull that off succesfully is a lot. In these days of the government spying on its own citizens, any such uprising would be nipped in the bud long before it reached critical mass.
And anyway, if you were serious about a revolt (where, in theory, you'd be prepared to commit murder), would you let a little thing like an anti-gun law stop you? If the answer is "no," then you don't really need it enshrined in the Constitution, do you?
One issue I feel very deeply about is the 2nd amendment, our national failsafe.
The 2nd amendment was written in a time when a small town of armed men could defend themselves against the British who were not much better armed, or, at worst, equal.
Could you elaborate as to what, exactly, you mean by "failsafe?" Do you mean that if the US government were, in your opinion, to get so out of control that the only recourse was to overthrow it, do you honestly believe you (and perhaps a few hundred of your buddies) could? You're seriously outmanned and outgunned.
Every song is treated identical, whether it's idie or big label crap it's all exactly the same.
On the iPod, yes; in iTunes, almost: some songs are labeled "Album Only" and therefore can be bought only if you buy the entire album. In my random browsing, it doesn't seem to be many, however.
Are you suggesting that we are still using Ma Bell-era switches? Because I doubt that.
There are lots of 1A-ESS and 5ESS switches still in operation. Lots. Additionally, AT&T continued to manufacturer switches for many years after the break-up and sold them to the baby bells. I know. I worked for AT&T at the time.
Can I get a raise of hands here on how many people find today's cable or telco companies (land-line or cell) doing all they can to respond to market pressure and consumer demand instead of just filling their own pockets?
Everything else aside, the old Bell Telephone network was the best in the world. Because the old AT&T was a monopoly, they could afford to engineer things right. They didn't have to worry about pesky things like cost-cutting or meeting next quarter's financial goals. Today's land-line service is still the best in the world, but it's due to the old AT&T legacy. When older equipment starts getting replaced, expect the quality of land-line service to decline.
If AT&T were never broken up, we'd probably have the best wireless service in the world today. Short of accident or disaster, you'd never get a dropped call. And we'd have one, unified technology, not the incompatible technologies of CDMA, TDMA, GSM, and iDEN.
I thought the largest provider was Cingular/ATT, wait it is... and they still use sims.
OK, granted; but Verizon and Sprint combined are most likely bigger than Cingular. But, even if that's not true, the point is that Verizon/Sprint is a significant market, too large for most to ignore. If a manufacturer doesn't have a CDMA version of their phone (many manufactuers do have both a GSM and a CDMA version), you're cutting out a significant percentage of your potential market.
Unfortunately, at least in the US, the wireless providers have a stranglehold on phone manufacturers. If the providers don't like your phone because it cuts into their profits, they will neither offer it for sale nor allow it to be activated on their network. AFAIK, only GSM customers have choice due to SIM cards, but the top two providers in the US use CDMA technology (which doesn't use SIM cards or any equivalent).
Is there any standard 'ID3' style for putting metadata into an EXIF header?
IPTC allows lots of metadata, e.g., caption, category, city, headline, keywords, etc. Google for it.
Note that IPTC has nothing to do with EXIF.
For JPEG files, IPTC metadata is stored in the segment having the APPD marker.
I merely believe strongly in... the principle of jury nullification. That doesn't mean that I couldn't vote guilty given the right evidence.
Those two statements are contradictory. Jury nullification is when the jury is convinced the defendant is guilty because the prosecution met their burden but votes "not guilty" anyway because they think the crime is BS and don't think anybody (or at least the defendant in question) should pay for the crime. Therefore, you have to vote "not guilty" regardless of the evidence. But then you said you'd vote "guilty" if sufficient evidence was presented -- presumeably even if it's a "victimless" crime.
Wouldn't it have been fair to merely say to yourself that you believed the guy to be innocent until PROVEN guilty? How is that dishonest?
My comments were in response to jury nullification. If you go in knowing you will vote "not guilty" because you want to ensure jury nullification (or, at worst, a hung jury), then you're serving your own political agenda.
If I'm ever serving on a jury, I can guarantee you that I won't be voting to convict in any "victimless crime" situation, or anything where somebody is being charged with violating some bullshit law. Hung jury or acquittal, here we come.
The problem with that is (assuming you're honest), you'd never make it past the voir dire phase. I once was called for jury duty where the defendant was charged with marijuana possesion and tresspass. He was some white-haired, old vagrant (with a cane, no less) who probably had gotten stoned and wandered into a railroad yard (probably just looking for a place to sleep for the night). The jury was asked if they had anything that might affect their impartiality. I had mentioned that (1) my father was a former member of law enforcement and (2) I had serious problems with the government's so-called "war on drugs" policy. Despite this being the actual truth, I surprisingly wasn't thrown off the jury for those reasons. Finally, and I forget exactly what I said, but it was along the lines of me having probems with this pitiful guy being arrested for some nonsense charges. I was thrown off the jury for that.
So you have an ethical dilemma: be honest and get thrown off or lie to stay on and grind your axe.
I never said it did. The point (that you obviously missed) is to think of Venus in terms or a runaway greenhouse effect. Venus' effect is caused chiefly by CO2; but methane is 25 times more effective at trapping heat, so (and here's the point, so pay attention) if you have methane release in non-trivial amounts on Earth, you also get a runaway greenhouse similar to Venus and you only need 1/25th as much as you would CO2.
Warmer temperatures elsewhere can accelerate the release of methane into the atmosphere and that could push global temperatures to increase dramatically. Think Venus.
If Software Update is run on a given machine X, you do NOT have to worry about processor differences -- Software Update downloads the right update for the right CPU.
Does [solve-the-riddle] give decent graduates/talented unexperienced devs/homegrown coders a chance at the corporate job, or does it alienate potential matches?
If I do say so myself, I'm a pretty good software architect and developer. However, I don't do well under the kind of pressure typically experienced at a job interview when asked to solve oddball problems in real-time. Often, my biggest insights come when I'm not consiously thinking about the problem, e.g., while in the shower.
Those who do well at solve-the-riddle interviews are certainly intelligent and can solve problems, but it's not necessarily true that they can solve ill-specified problems -- real-world problems that need solving aren't usually as completely specified as a riddle or puzzle.
There are other ways to conduct interviews that yield good candidates. Get the person to talk about his past work -- technical people who have done good stuff love to do this with great enthusiasm. You can then ask about trade-offs in thei designs and implementations. You can usually figure out whether the candidate was a key player in the work being discussed.
Another way is to describe a real-world problem facing your company, but without actually asking the candidate anything. A good candidate will be interested in yoru problem, ask questions, offer suggestions. If the candidate just sits there, s/he's not a good candidate.
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To support you conclusion: this has always been the case for "software patents" which is a misnomer. The even more general version of your conclusion is: a "software patent" is that the thing a general-purpose computer becomes as a result of running given software.
For example, if back in the day, VisiCorp had patented a spreadsheet application, what they really would have patented would be something along the lines of "an aparatus for performing calculations using fomrulae arranged in a grid on a screen allowing user input to alter the results of said formulae in real-time" (or some such).
The key word to note is "aparatus." If you came along and made another aparatus that did exactly the same thing using only springs and gears, you'd be infringing on the patent because a patent protects the idea itself, not its expression. The computer/software combination is merely the "preferred embodiment" of said patent.
Except we're not talking about "resisting the government." The "failsafe" argument for the 2nd amendment is about overthrowing the government. If something similar were to happen in the US, it would be the same protracted quagmire that's happening in Iraq now, but the US government itself would stay very much intact.
Want another example? Just look at the IRA. They've been at it for decades and the British government is still around.
I never said anything about altering the course of American history. I said you can't overthrow the government. The US government didn't cease to exist after presidents were shot.
Unfortunately, the NRA is too powerful a lobby for that to happen any time soon.
We'll have to agree to disagree on that point then; but my complaint about using that as a justification for the 2nd amendment still stands: if you really want to get a gun to overthrow your government (an act that is allready illegal according to said government), then I don't see why having guns also be illegal would hinder you in any way. Compared to treason/terrorism, illegal gun possesion is small potatoes.If you go back and re-read what I wrote, I never said anything against or even about gun ownership. My comment was about the "failsafe" justification for the 2nd amendment. If your justification were instead along the lines of protecting your home against intruders, I'd buy that. But the whole "failsafe against the goverment" argument just makes no sense in this century.
Without seeing the actual data from the poll, it's a vague statement. A lot depends on how exactly the question was phrased. There's also a huge difference between refusing to turn in your gun (that you presumeably have on your person somewhere) and actually pointing it at a Marine. Anybody (Marine or not) having a gun pointed at him should assume it's meant to be used and if it's you or him, you're going down.
Additionally, any armed service officer isn't trained to think; he's trained to obey orders. He's not going to take the time to listen to your argument and try to understand why you're protesting and mull it over before making a decision whether to put a bullet in your chest if you're aiming a gun at him.
And an unarmed, skinny, Indian guy dressed in a dhoti defeated the British Empire. Not bad for a mere subject. (If he had a gun, the British would have shot him dead in the street.)
Any who had guns certainly didn't use them otherwise it would have given the police just cause to fire on the crowds. So if they never used them (nor even give any indication thay they were armed as you suggest), then the outcome would have been no different had they not had them at all.If those people were pointing guns at the military? Absolutely. Once you pick up a gun and point it at a soldier, you cease being a friend and are instead seen as a lone wacko or, if there's many of you, a cult. In post-9/11 lingo, you'd all be considered terrorists. You'd all either be captured or shot and there'd be stories on Dateline NBC interviewing your friends and family who'd say things like they never truly knew you.
Contrast that with the gun-free protests of the civil rights moment. How far do you think they would have gotten if they were carrying guns? The police used fire-hoses and tear-gas in some cases where the protestors did not have guns. If they had guns, you can bet the police would have used bullets.
The amount of coordination needed to pull that off succesfully is a lot. In these days of the government spying on its own citizens, any such uprising would be nipped in the bud long before it reached critical mass.
And anyway, if you were serious about a revolt (where, in theory, you'd be prepared to commit murder), would you let a little thing like an anti-gun law stop you? If the answer is "no," then you don't really need it enshrined in the Constitution, do you?
The 2nd amendment was written in a time when a small town of armed men could defend themselves against the British who were not much better armed, or, at worst, equal.
Could you elaborate as to what, exactly, you mean by "failsafe?" Do you mean that if the US government were, in your opinion, to get so out of control that the only recourse was to overthrow it, do you honestly believe you (and perhaps a few hundred of your buddies) could? You're seriously outmanned and outgunned.
On the iPod, yes; in iTunes, almost: some songs are labeled "Album Only" and therefore can be bought only if you buy the entire album. In my random browsing, it doesn't seem to be many, however.
Never mind. I just noticed your use of the word "least." Sorry.
How do you know it wasn't 7-2, 8-1, or 9-0?
There are lots of 1A-ESS and 5ESS switches still in operation. Lots. Additionally, AT&T continued to manufacturer switches for many years after the break-up and sold them to the baby bells. I know. I worked for AT&T at the time.
Everything else aside, the old Bell Telephone network was the best in the world. Because the old AT&T was a monopoly, they could afford to engineer things right. They didn't have to worry about pesky things like cost-cutting or meeting next quarter's financial goals. Today's land-line service is still the best in the world, but it's due to the old AT&T legacy. When older equipment starts getting replaced, expect the quality of land-line service to decline.
If AT&T were never broken up, we'd probably have the best wireless service in the world today. Short of accident or disaster, you'd never get a dropped call. And we'd have one, unified technology, not the incompatible technologies of CDMA, TDMA, GSM, and iDEN.
OK, granted; but Verizon and Sprint combined are most likely bigger than Cingular. But, even if that's not true, the point is that Verizon/Sprint is a significant market, too large for most to ignore. If a manufacturer doesn't have a CDMA version of their phone (many manufactuers do have both a GSM and a CDMA version), you're cutting out a significant percentage of your potential market.
Unfortunately, at least in the US, the wireless providers have a stranglehold on phone manufacturers. If the providers don't like your phone because it cuts into their profits, they will neither offer it for sale nor allow it to be activated on their network. AFAIK, only GSM customers have choice due to SIM cards, but the top two providers in the US use CDMA technology (which doesn't use SIM cards or any equivalent).
You can't have it both ways, so which is it?
So you have an ethical dilemma: be honest and get thrown off or lie to stay on and grind your axe.
If Software Update is run on a given machine X, you do NOT have to worry about processor differences -- Software Update downloads the right update for the right CPU.
Those who do well at solve-the-riddle interviews are certainly intelligent and can solve problems, but it's not necessarily true that they can solve ill-specified problems -- real-world problems that need solving aren't usually as completely specified as a riddle or puzzle.
There are other ways to conduct interviews that yield good candidates. Get the person to talk about his past work -- technical people who have done good stuff love to do this with great enthusiasm. You can then ask about trade-offs in thei designs and implementations. You can usually figure out whether the candidate was a key player in the work being discussed.
Another way is to describe a real-world problem facing your company, but without actually asking the candidate anything. A good candidate will be interested in yoru problem, ask questions, offer suggestions. If the candidate just sits there, s/he's not a good candidate.