Seriously, why are condoms made out of latex? Aren't there better, more natural feeling materials out there that wouldn't disrupt sensitivity so much? It would seem to me that a better feeling condom would lead to a greater practice of safe sex.
This is nothing unique and any idiot trained in the arts would have seen it as a trivial invention (SMP, variable clock, and large caches have all existed for quite some time) and therefore not worthy of a patent.
The problem is, any idiot trained in the arts of microprocessor design could make a lot more money practicing their arts then working at the Patent Office. Although, maybe with Indian outsourcing things will change in a couple years...
if you make the losing party pay, you can pretty much guarantee that people like you or I will never, ever go up against a big corporation and their hordes of lawyers. If you lost, you'd be bankrupt.
What diffrence would it make? The companies could counter-sue, and you'd go bankrupt trying to defend yourself.
The problem is, this would appear to be at best a submarrined patent. You can't hold a patent on something that was a key to the tech boom of 1999-2001, and then show up in 2004 claiming you deserve royalties on it all. There comes a point where if a patent owner doesn't stop the theft of their technology, they forfeit their right to go to the courts
Uh, except patents generally take a couple years to get passed. And anyway, you can wait as long as you want to exercise your patent rights if you want to. Unisys waited until two years before their GIF patent expired to ask for royalties, and they got them.
I mean, don't you think it's possible that those companies really are infringing their patents?
And anyway, why would big companies care? They have the legal resources to fight off bogus patent cases (just like the patent office intends), and the benifit probably outweighs the cost.
That said, if patent law were changed, say to charge far more money and do more research it would be a huge benifit to large companies who could afford the filing fee. If patent law were scrapped totaly, it would be a big benifit for large companies who could get products to market quickly.
Howard Dean was a governer when the Patriot Act was voted on, and didn't have a say on the matter one way or another.
That said, I can understand wanting to vote for it at the time, we did need to figure out who was responsible for 9/11. Otoh, I would not have voted for something that lasted for 3 or 4 years, but rather had it come up for renewal after 6 months. Not that my vote (if I had it) would have made a diffrence, but at least I could say I didn't vote for it in the end:P
I don't really get how someone can found a religion and then a hundred years later someone can say "Oops, this one little point, which was actualy a pretty big part of the religion is no longer valid, and in fact totally wrong."
It would be like the pope suddenly saying "never mind, Marry wasn't actually a virgin."
I can see how they could change the rules, but not the moral underpinnings.
The new uber-highend sony cam supports CF, oddly enough (eveything else uses sony's propritary memorysticks). In fact, you can use CF and memory sticks. There are a few high-end cams that can take either CF cards or SD cards.
And anyway, I want my cell phone to play games, IM, email, cameras, HDTV, etc. And The market seems to think I'm in the majority, so to hell with the Ludite losers out there.
I've found that most of the people who have trouble with technology don't have the problem because they aren't intelligent in general, they just don't care enough to learn how it works.
Perhaps the fact that they're using taxpayer money to do it? And the fact that their public charter requires that they be fair and unbiased on everything they report on?
Well, the BBC does make money outside of taxes, but whatever, if british voters really wanted it gone, it would be. Obviously the BBC fucked up by "sexing up" the government sexup chargers, but not by advertizing on google...
It's especially sad when someone reads one piece of propaganda and goes psycho without considering the motives behind it. The Guardian hates the BBC, and they along with Rupert Murdoch have been trying to get the British government to shut down the BBCs great website, so that more people go to their services.
What exactly is wrong with advertising your side of the story. Most advertisers are interested parties, and the article made it sound like they were preventing other voices from being heard, which is ridiculous.
Finaly
"I wonder how much it would cost them if someone, say, automated searching for those links on Google."
Iowa state has been doing this for at least four years. And their technology works exactly the same over wifi. Sinc the method is media agnostic, couldn't you get around this patent simply by ignoring the fact that you're doing this over wifi?
The page I pulled up has an IBM ad, with a grainy picture of "The Linux orphan boy" which has been appearing in their TV advertising lately. here's where the link whent
While I think digital watches have come a long way, I still think a mechanical spring is a more intelligent motivator for a timepiece than a battery. If pressed, I might be able to build a spring from scrap metal. While I could also construct a crude battery from discarded veggies and coins, it wouldn't power my Casio.
I doubt it would be easier to build a watch-spring then a battery. A battery is just two or 3 materials in contact with eachother, hardly a feat of enginering. The spring on the other hand needs to be precision crafted. Most electronics will work fine with a little extra or less electricity.
There are exactly two modes of human interaction possible: voluntary and involuntary. Every single interaction you engage in throughout your life -- working, playing, grocery shopping, holding a conversation, being mugged on the street -- every interaction must fall into exactly one of these two categories.
Yawn, You're wrong. And also stupid. The world is not black and white, there are many continuous variables, and many multidimensional variables. "Voluntary" and "involuntary" are just labels for motivation, which can have many dimensions and factors.
Words are defined by how they are used. People often use "power" to mean the ability to exert influence, rather then the right to exert influence. If you want to talk about the right to exert influence then say "The right to exert influence" or, whatever it is you specifically mean. Otherwise, stick with the words that people generally use.
Slashdot Mirror
Seriously, why are condoms made out of latex? Aren't there better, more natural feeling materials out there that wouldn't disrupt sensitivity so much? It would seem to me that a better feeling condom would lead to a greater practice of safe sex.
Is latex just used because it's cheap?
This is nothing unique and any idiot trained in the arts would have seen it as a trivial invention (SMP, variable clock, and large caches have all existed for quite some time) and therefore not worthy of a patent.
The problem is, any idiot trained in the arts of microprocessor design could make a lot more money practicing their arts then working at the Patent Office. Although, maybe with Indian outsourcing things will change in a couple years...
if you make the losing party pay, you can pretty much guarantee that people like you or I will never, ever go up against a big corporation and their hordes of lawyers. If you lost, you'd be bankrupt.
What diffrence would it make? The companies could counter-sue, and you'd go bankrupt trying to defend yourself.
The problem is, this would appear to be at best a submarrined patent. You can't hold a patent on something that was a key to the tech boom of 1999-2001, and then show up in 2004 claiming you deserve royalties on it all. There comes a point where if a patent owner doesn't stop the theft of their technology, they forfeit their right to go to the courts
Uh, except patents generally take a couple years to get passed. And anyway, you can wait as long as you want to exercise your patent rights if you want to. Unisys waited until two years before their GIF patent expired to ask for royalties, and they got them.
I mean, don't you think it's possible that those companies really are infringing their patents?
And anyway, why would big companies care? They have the legal resources to fight off bogus patent cases (just like the patent office intends), and the benifit probably outweighs the cost.
That said, if patent law were changed, say to charge far more money and do more research it would be a huge benifit to large companies who could afford the filing fee. If patent law were scrapped totaly, it would be a big benifit for large companies who could get products to market quickly.
When I was a kid, we didn't have fancy CMOS gates, we had to pick NMOS or PMOS and go from there!
One release would cause IE to quit if you closed a quicktime video. Kill every browser window you had open, just by clicking 'back'.
Its still annoying today, and you can't fullscreen video (rather, it maximizes the window, so you still have the start button, and all the chrome).
QT for windows sucks. That said, I definetly prefer it to Real for streaming video on websites.
Hopefully more places will follow suit. I have no idea why realplayer is so damn popular with so many news places.
I wish people would just stick to open standards, but this is an improvement in my eyes.
Howard Dean was a governer when the Patriot Act was voted on, and didn't have a say on the matter one way or another.
:P
That said, I can understand wanting to vote for it at the time, we did need to figure out who was responsible for 9/11. Otoh, I would not have voted for something that lasted for 3 or 4 years, but rather had it come up for renewal after 6 months. Not that my vote (if I had it) would have made a diffrence, but at least I could say I didn't vote for it in the end
I don't really get how someone can found a religion and then a hundred years later someone can say "Oops, this one little point, which was actualy a pretty big part of the religion is no longer valid, and in fact totally wrong."
It would be like the pope suddenly saying "never mind, Marry wasn't actually a virgin."
I can see how they could change the rules, but not the moral underpinnings.
To have:
create table relationships { person1 int, person2, int, relationtype int};
and:
create table relationtype{ int id, name varchar(100)};
That way you'd keep the types of relationshps in check, be able to enumerate all of them (without using UNIQUE), etc.
Project the image onto a flat white surface after taking the picture. Picture bounces off screen and back into camera. Viola!
The new uber-highend sony cam supports CF, oddly enough (eveything else uses sony's propritary memorysticks). In fact, you can use CF and memory sticks. There are a few high-end cams that can take either CF cards or SD cards.
And anyway, I want my cell phone to play games, IM, email, cameras, HDTV, etc. And The market seems to think I'm in the majority, so to hell with the Ludite losers out there.
I've found that most of the people who have trouble with technology don't have the problem because they aren't intelligent in general, they just don't care enough to learn how it works.
The real question is have they finally dumped the stupid x86 instruction set in favour of a space/energy/coding efficient RISC set?
Yeah, this happened like 10 years ago or so (RISC internaly, CISC externaly).
Oh my fucking word. You've either never read the Guardian or are trolling.
wrong
Major media bodies including News International, IPC Media, the Commercial Radio Companies Association, Associated Newspapers and Guardian Newspapers, are to submit a response to Philip Graf, who is heading the Government's probe into the BBC's internet activities, within the next few weeks.
No, obviously you are the one who's been deficient in the Guardian reading department.
Perhaps the fact that they're using taxpayer money to do it? And the fact that their public charter requires that they be fair and unbiased on everything they report on?
Well, the BBC does make money outside of taxes, but whatever, if british voters really wanted it gone, it would be. Obviously the BBC fucked up by "sexing up" the government sexup chargers, but not by advertizing on google...
It's especially sad when someone reads one piece of propaganda and goes psycho without considering the motives behind it. The Guardian hates the BBC, and they along with Rupert Murdoch have been trying to get the British government to shut down the BBCs great website, so that more people go to their services.
What exactly is wrong with advertising your side of the story. Most advertisers are interested parties, and the article made it sound like they were preventing other voices from being heard, which is ridiculous.
Finaly
"I wonder how much it would cost them if someone, say, automated searching for those links on Google."
Absolutely nothing.
Are you saying that patenting one method for doing wifi registration is equivalent to actually literally killing someone?
Charge much more money for the patent process, enough to pay for carefull analysis. Let small inventors in by giving up a peice of the royaltes.
Iowa state has been doing this for at least four years. And their technology works exactly the same over wifi. Sinc the method is media agnostic, couldn't you get around this patent simply by ignoring the fact that you're doing this over wifi?
The page I pulled up has an IBM ad, with a grainy picture of "The Linux orphan boy" which has been appearing in their TV advertising lately. here's where the link whent
Does anyone else find those ads profoundly weird?
While I think digital watches have come a long way, I still think a mechanical spring is a more intelligent motivator for a timepiece than a battery. If pressed, I might be able to build a spring from scrap metal. While I could also construct a crude battery from discarded veggies and coins, it wouldn't power my Casio.
I doubt it would be easier to build a watch-spring then a battery. A battery is just two or 3 materials in contact with eachother, hardly a feat of enginering. The spring on the other hand needs to be precision crafted. Most electronics will work fine with a little extra or less electricity.
There are exactly two modes of human interaction possible: voluntary and involuntary. Every single interaction you engage in throughout your life -- working, playing, grocery shopping, holding a conversation, being mugged on the street -- every interaction must fall into exactly one of these two categories.
Yawn, You're wrong. And also stupid. The world is not black and white, there are many continuous variables, and many multidimensional variables. "Voluntary" and "involuntary" are just labels for motivation, which can have many dimensions and factors.
Words are defined by how they are used. People often use "power" to mean the ability to exert influence, rather then the right to exert influence. If you want to talk about the right to exert influence then say "The right to exert influence" or, whatever it is you specifically mean. Otherwise, stick with the words that people generally use.
In the US, espionage laws generally don't apply to the elites, unless they really fuck up (ala Enron, Watergate).