How many computer manufacturers are based in England, compared to the USA?
Let me see, In the UK we have Dell, IBM, Compaq, Toshiba, Fujitsu, and in the US you have ??? (excluding those who make in Korea, China, etc)
No, the reason is that here in the UK, we pay insanely over inflated prices, because a GBP is worth EUR1, but costs EUR1.43.
The underlying reason for the GBP being over valued is because we are stupid and pay too much for things, and everyone else is stupid and pays too much for GBP!
IANAL: While not haveing RTFA, or indeed done any research or investigation, as an "expert", my opinion is:
The original definition of a computer, from the days of Turing, was "a universal computing machine that compute anything computable" - and the original application was to emulate the Enigma machine.
Using a computer to emulate another is "using the machine for the purpose for which it was intended" and cannot be described as a novel invention for the purpose of a patent.
As far as being handheld is concerned, ISTR handheld computing machined known as "four function calculators" (which contained microprocessors) being available in the early 1970's. I have an emulation of one of these on my woindows desktop, and another on my kde desktop. I have written one myself, and indeed, Borland gave one away as part of the Turbo-C examples.
In short, if this patent is valid, even in America, low flying pigs are a bigger threat to the US than any terrorists.
The truth is: Almost all the water is used in making the beer drunk by the assembly line workers, and 90% of the fossil fuel is used by the SUVs their bosses drive to work.
1) A million lemmings cant be wrong.
2) We asked 1,000 Windows users whether they would prefer to pay $299 for a used Lada, or have a new Bentley. 999 chose the Lada. We watched as the other one put a "My other computer runs BSD" sticker in his new Bentley.
3) I think you will find the 100% of users chose VHS, despite the fact that even a dead fish was better.
I have to say that for me, predictive text has NEVER ONCE GOT THE RIGHT WORD. I put this down to the fact that the dictionary is centered around teenagers. I can enter the message the "hard way" faster than I can with predictive text. However, my old phone used to default to predictive text on every time it was powered up, leading to serious cases of "text rage".
Anyway the moral of the original story is: you are more likely to keep your job if you dont have a mobile phone.
What's wrong with hiring a highschool student to do low-wage work as he lives with his parents? $4.00 an hour might pay for all the gas & food he needs.
What is wrong is that pretty soon this gets to be used to justify paying $4/hr to people doing other jobs too "its the going rate", and then to justify $4/month to single parents on other countries whose children die because US drug companies charge $4/pill for medicine.
Its obvious there IS a problem. The solution is less obvious.
if they did, they wouldn't approve half the patents they approve
I have just spent the last couple of hours reviewing 26 US patents, going back over 30 years. I would say 10 were for devices already in common use at time of filing, and 3 were for things that would not work. Several of the rest were duplicates using different words.
In summary, the USPTO is clearly incompetent, and has been for over 30 years.
Personally, I don't see Mercedes worrying about Ford's market share.
Unfortunately, ever since the computer was invented, the majority of the computer market HAS been newbies, who are prepared to pay big bucks for a Yugo, rather than have a Merc for free because "A million Lemmings can't be wrong".
History Teaches us:
In the 1950's people bought computers from suppliers chosen because of politics (The mainframe era). The world market was 100 machines. In the 1960's there was a huge mainframe shakeout - the entire market of 100 people started to ask questions about performance reliability, and software support.
In the 1970's people bought computers from suppliers chosen because of fashion (The minicomputer era). The world market was 100,000 machines, of whom 100 had any significant experience of previous buying. In the 1980's there was a huge minicomputer shakeout - 100,000 people started to ask questions about performance, reliability, and software support.
In the 1990's people bought computers from suppliers chosen because of advertising (The pc era). The world market was 100,000,000 machines, of whom 100,000 had any significant experience of previous buying. Any your prediction is?
I bet money there are more workstations used for word processing than servers.
This suggests that the real need is to ignore the windows issue for now, and switch to Open Office, whose support is far superior to Microsoft's in terms of bug fixing, and take the money saved on buying the product and spend some on a maintenance contract - Open Office has a list of contractors who can do this.
This can be done gradually, since OO supports MS Office formats, and at relatively low risk compared to the percieved risk of replacing ropey old MS servers with rock solid *BSD ones.
A few years back, my mother was stopped for driving at 30mph in a 30-MPH speed limit area (Marylebone Road). The police that stopped her said "Obeying the speed limit is grounds for suspecting you of drinking. Most normal people drive at 10MPH above the limit." Which was true before the cameras.
Recently I was flashed doing 36MPH in a 30MPH area which was a country road (trees on both sides) with a restriction a few hundred yards long. Not only was I fined 60 ($100) (fair enough) but I got three points on my licence, just like I would have if I was doing 130MPH.
Why do you get the same number of points, and the same fine, regardless of the speed you were doing, when, if you were stopped by the police, you probably would get no points but a caution at 36mph, and life inprisonment for doing 130MPH?
Its the lack of any kind of "discression" that offends people's sense of decency.
Bear in mind that the British system is based on a "Highway Code" Its not illegal to break the Highway Code, but if you do, and there is an accident, you can be charged with "dangerous driving" with a set of well defined rules. The system assumes discression on the part of drivers. Speed cameras are a break with our cultural traditions in the direction of something many of us think our parents fought the Germans to prevent!
In a lot of countries where you have no rights at all, the government is dependent on forgers, because real notes cost more than their face value to print!
About the same time, the BBC did an experiment to see if people could identify genuine notes from fake ones.
Nost could not tell until the guy from the BBC pointed out that the fakes had the word "FAKE" printed in 1" high capitals on the back!
Re:I don't *want* concise user manuals
on
KISS
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· Score: 1
In the olden days, when 1200 baud was "fast", I worked for a modem manufacturer. They employed a technical author who was Polish, and spoke very little English. He could not understand the engineer's explanations of how the products were supposed to work, and no one could understand the manuals.
I asked the CTO why they employed him. The reply was "he was very cheap!"
There is no business difference between someone who telecommutes from India or Indiana.
And no difference between little league players and superbowl winners? - maybe to a PHB
The underlying problem is: few managers can tell the difference between someone who can kick a ball round the yard, and someone who can score the winning goal in a world cup. All programmers/sysadmins are considered to be the same. The main reason why jobs are going is that programmers do not get the visibility for their work that ball players or musicians get (or the money, or the girls...)
As they say in London... Pay peanuts, get monkeys.
Now imagine perl programmers got paid like rap artists...
Slashdot Mirror
"I'm sorry Dave, I cannot do that!"
How about server side castration?
The money is good too - when you are actually in work.
Let me see, In the UK we have Dell, IBM, Compaq, Toshiba, Fujitsu, and in the US you have ??? (excluding those who make in Korea, China, etc)
No, the reason is that here in the UK, we pay insanely over inflated prices, because a GBP is worth EUR1, but costs EUR1.43.
The underlying reason for the GBP being over valued is because we are stupid and pay too much for things, and everyone else is stupid and pays too much for GBP!
Yes.. add a clause mentioning the use of cruel and inhuman torture and/or cruise missiles.
The original definition of a computer, from the days of Turing, was "a universal computing machine that compute anything computable" - and the original application was to emulate the Enigma machine.
Using a computer to emulate another is "using the machine for the purpose for which it was intended" and cannot be described as a novel invention for the purpose of a patent.
As far as being handheld is concerned, ISTR handheld computing machined known as "four function calculators" (which contained microprocessors) being available in the early 1970's. I have an emulation of one of these on my woindows desktop, and another on my kde desktop. I have written one myself, and indeed, Borland gave one away as part of the Turbo-C examples.
In short, if this patent is valid, even in America, low flying pigs are a bigger threat to the US than any terrorists.
Its politics you are talking about: from Poly=many and tics=parasites.
Anyway, you have to expect this kind of problem in thord world countries.
ISTR the 8k versions were significantly better though. (And these were words, not bytes).
1) A million lemmings cant be wrong.
2) We asked 1,000 Windows users whether they would prefer to pay $299 for a used Lada, or have a new Bentley. 999 chose the Lada. We watched as the other one put a "My other computer runs BSD" sticker in his new Bentley.
3) I think you will find the 100% of users chose VHS, despite the fact that even a dead fish was better.
Anyway the moral of the original story is: you are more likely to keep your job if you dont have a mobile phone.
What is wrong is that pretty soon this gets to be used to justify paying $4/hr to people doing other jobs too "its the going rate", and then to justify $4/month to single parents on other countries whose children die because US drug companies charge $4/pill for medicine.
Its obvious there IS a problem. The solution is less obvious.
I have just spent the last couple of hours reviewing 26 US patents, going back over 30 years. I would say 10 were for devices already in common use at time of filing, and 3 were for things that would not work. Several of the rest were duplicates using different words.
In summary, the USPTO is clearly incompetent, and has been for over 30 years.
They have only one logical expression they attempt to evaluate
If (valuable(thing)) then grab(thing);
They often fail in evaluating the valuable(thing) bit - and steal worthless stuff, or so damage things they steal that they are worthless once stolen.
However, if you are that stupid, it hard to see any other way to survive in today's world.
Unfortunately, ever since the computer was invented, the majority of the computer market HAS been newbies, who are prepared to pay big bucks for a Yugo, rather than have a Merc for free because "A million Lemmings can't be wrong".
History Teaches us:
In the 1950's people bought computers from suppliers chosen because of politics (The mainframe era). The world market was 100 machines. In the 1960's there was a huge mainframe shakeout - the entire market of 100 people started to ask questions about performance reliability, and software support.
In the 1970's people bought computers from suppliers chosen because of fashion (The minicomputer era). The world market was 100,000 machines, of whom 100 had any significant experience of previous buying. In the 1980's there was a huge minicomputer shakeout - 100,000 people started to ask questions about performance, reliability, and software support.
In the 1990's people bought computers from suppliers chosen because of advertising (The pc era). The world market was 100,000,000 machines, of whom 100,000 had any significant experience of previous buying. Any your prediction is?
???
profit?
In any case, the argument is not that Open Source was free as in beer, but free as in "not selling your soul to Bill Gates" (or SCO).
Up till now, the only person on records as getting a good deal when selling his soul to the devil is Robert Johnson.
This suggests that the real need is to ignore the windows issue for now, and switch to Open Office, whose support is far superior to Microsoft's in terms of bug fixing, and take the money saved on buying the product and spend some on a maintenance contract - Open Office has a list of contractors who can do this.
This can be done gradually, since OO supports MS Office formats, and at relatively low risk compared to the percieved risk of replacing ropey old MS servers with rock solid *BSD ones.
A few years back, my mother was stopped for driving at 30mph in a 30-MPH speed limit area (Marylebone Road). The police that stopped her said "Obeying the speed limit is grounds for suspecting you of drinking. Most normal people drive at 10MPH above the limit." Which was true before the cameras.
Recently I was flashed doing 36MPH in a 30MPH area which was a country road (trees on both sides) with a restriction a few hundred yards long. Not only was I fined 60 ($100) (fair enough) but I got three points on my licence, just like I would have if I was doing 130MPH.
Why do you get the same number of points, and the same fine, regardless of the speed you were doing, when, if you were stopped by the police, you probably would get no points but a caution at 36mph, and life inprisonment for doing 130MPH?
Its the lack of any kind of "discression" that offends people's sense of decency.
Bear in mind that the British system is based on a "Highway Code" Its not illegal to break the Highway Code, but if you do, and there is an accident, you can be charged with "dangerous driving" with a set of well defined rules. The system assumes discression on the part of drivers. Speed cameras are a break with our cultural traditions in the direction of something many of us think our parents fought the Germans to prevent!
Nost could not tell until the guy from the BBC pointed out that the fakes had the word "FAKE" printed in 1" high capitals on the back!
I asked the CTO why they employed him. The reply was "he was very cheap!"
The company no longer makes modems :-)
And no difference between little league players and superbowl winners? - maybe to a PHB
The underlying problem is: few managers can tell the difference between someone who can kick a ball round the yard, and someone who can score the winning goal in a world cup. All programmers/sysadmins are considered to be the same. The main reason why jobs are going is that programmers do not get the visibility for their work that ball players or musicians get (or the money, or the girls ...)
As they say in London... Pay peanuts, get monkeys.
Now imagine perl programmers got paid like rap artists...