Is a chef allowed to patent his/her method of preparation of a recipe?
Yes, if they meet the various requirements for patentability. Ditto for your other "counterexamples."
No, a chef is not allowed to patent a recipe or a method of cooking (I work for the largest fortune 500 casual restaurant company). If a chef/company _was_ allowed to patent a method of preparing a certain recipe, the restaurant industry would be a WHOLE different beast. The same goes for mathematicians. If mathematicians were allowed to patent mathematical algorithms, well the scientific industry would be completely different, not to mention the IT/software industry would be at the mercy of many mathematicians. Pure mathematical algorithms are _not_ allowed to be patented, yet software is nothing more than mathematical algorithms giving a computer instructions.
Nope. Software and business method patentability basically derive from the courts. The language in the Patent Act is very broad, and the courts eventually came around to interpreting it such that anything under the sun, made by man, is patentable, provided the various requirements of the statute are met.
And why do you think the courts would do that? Because the politicians drafted such broad laws. The courts do not make laws; they only interpret the laws drafted by congress. So if congress drafted tight requirements for patentability, then the courts would have interpreted the laws in that manner. As it stands now, the USPTO grants just about any patent and "lets people fight it out in court". Most people/companies don't have or don't want to spend so much money/time in court and just settle (unless you do not produce and products and just have "IP" that you sue over, which create an incentive to just sue).
When asked about the possible ecological effects on marine life the military had no comment
I would like to know what stupid PETA-loving-tree-hugging-idiot asked this question. Seriously, we are talking about HUMAN LIVES and some green-party freak can only think of, "uh, well, what about the little fishies?"
SCREW THE FISH! I would rather see one HUMAN saved and see ALL the marine life in the world wiped out than one HUMAN killed to save all the marine life.
Ask yourself this question; if you were given the choice between being killed and having all marine life preserved or living and having all marine life destroyed, which would you pick? How about if the question was changed a little to replace you with your wife/boyfriend/lover/daughter/son? Would you make that sacrifice of the person you love the most to save some freaking fish? I know I WOULD NOT.
I find it pretty sick that people could even ask "what about the marine life" when the only other alternative would be to sacrifice HUMAN lives. Men and women that have mothers/fathers/girlfriends/boyfriends/children that LOVE and NEED them.
When will our world be free of these idiots that put plants and animals above HUMAN life?
I will tell you my opinion. I would rather live in a world where no human ever suffers again that is void of ALL other life, than live in a world where non-human life flourishes and HUMAN life suffers. Yes, life would suck without other natural species, but I would do it to save HUMANS. Note: for the PETA-tree-lovers; I have personally owned: cats(5), dogs(8), spiders(50) (including the largets species Goliath Birdeater), snakes(~200) ([albino]Burmese python, African rock python, blood python, corn, rat, green boa, emerald tree boa, rainbow boa, boa constrictor, anaconda), Anoles, Chameleons (Oustelet's, Fischer's, Veil), Gecko (African Fat tail, Crested Gecko, Giant Day, Tokay), Iguanid(Blue Spiny Swift, Brown Basilisk, Emerald Swift, Texas Spiny Swift), Monitors(Black/Golden Tegu, Nile, Savannah) and Bearded Dragons. I don't think _anyone_ could call me an animal "hater".
Sorry, but that's just dumb. Copyrights and patents don't overlap at all:
No, then tell that to Amazon, MS,...
you cannot copyright inventions, and you cannot patent something that's not an invention.
I guess Amazon doesn't have copyright _and_ a patent on their "one-click" "IP" crap. I guess you consider Microsoft's "Office XML" crap an "invention"? I guess you consider Amazon's "one-click" crap and "invention"?
Additionally, patents are still perfectly capable of being beneficial, and often are.
Yes, _ALL_ patents are "beneficial". It just comes down to exactly WHO they are beneficial to. Amazon's "One-Click" crap is "beneficial" to Amazon, yet a major burden to tons of commercial websites trying to do a _very_ basic task that Amazon DID NOT INVENT. Microsoft's "XML" crap is "beneficial" to Microsoft, yet it is a major burden to many developers/companies that have been doing the same thing for much longer.
I would venture a guess that about 20% of all software patents are even close to being an "invention" (and 20% is extremely generous). Heck, I don't think _any_ software patent is an "invention". Why should one person/group/company be allowed to patent a method of doing something with software? Is a chef allowed to patent his/her method of preparation of a recipe? Nope. Is a mathematician allowed to patent his/her method of a proof? Nope. Can I patent my "method" of telling you how to inflate your tires? Nope (well, maybe, the US PTO is really that bad). Software patents are no different than the above examples. Software IS NOTHIGN BUT INSTRUCTION TO A COMPUTER! Why should you be allowed to lock anyone out of telling a computer how to do "one click" to buy an item for a repeat customer? Why should you be allowed to lock people out of telling a computer how to react to certain mouse clicks (MS)? Sadly big business has once again bribed our "representatives" into allowing laws to protect their business methods.
I have a good idea. Software patents should cost $0 for people who do not work for a large corporation (say, any company doing less than $500 million a year). Oh, and that small corporation must not have any ties, financial or whatever, to a large corporation. This way, all the little guys out there could rack up a boat load of patents and sue the crap out of the big corps.
I am personally glad that this group of non-producing pond scum is suing RIM. I personally hope to see any successful product be sued out of existence by a group/person that only owns "IP". This way maybe the big corps will throw around their bribe money to the crooked politician and maybe we would see the end of software patents.
From this page at Novell titled "Packages on the retail version and not the OSS version of SUSE Linux 10.0". It lists packages that you would get if you bought the retail version because those packages are not OSS? I have not looked at the whole list yet, however, a few big ticket-items (to me) stood out:
Since when did Eclipse become non-OSS? According to www.eclipse.org
Eclipse is an open source community whose projects are focused on providing an extensible development platform and application frameworks for building software. Eclipse provides extensible tools and frameworks that span the software development lifecycle, including support for modeling, language development environments for Java, C/C++ and others, testing and performance, business intelligence, rich client applications and embedded development. A large, vibrant ecosystem of major technology vendors, innovative start-ups, universities and research institutions and individuals extend, complement and support the Eclipse Platform.
There is another one I noticed:
bitstream-vera-1.10-169.noarch.rpm
I thought the Bitstream Vera fonts were release under an OSS license? I know I have enjoyed those excellent fonts under Fedora for a while now. Why doesn't SuSE OSS offer them in the OSS version?
Did anyone else notice other OSS software in the list that SuSE left out of the OSS version claiming that it is NOT OSS when in fact it is?
Uh... your number of troops are wrong dumbass. Did you every serve in the US Military? I did, the U.S.M.C. We contribute more troops to the UN than you suggested. Also, what is the big deal if another nation wants to send more of their troops to be slaves to the UN? The main thing the UN needs to do its job is MONEY. The USA contributes a lot of MONEY to the UN, even though I think it is rather dumb to waste our money on the UN. The UN is not effective anymore (if they ever were). The UN is just one be philosophical argument. The UN sucks and needs to be replaced by an organization that actually PRODUCES results.
And your whole Walmart "argument" of (and Walmart, with ~ $300 billion in revenue) is just stupid. Walmart's _SALES_ (which is ___way___ different than Walmart's _PROFITS_) of ~$300 billion does NOT add ~$300 billion to the US GDP dumbass. It is not as if you take away Walmart's ~$300 billion in _SALES_ and all of a sudden the USA GDP drops by ~$300 billion dumbass.
And your "excuse" of a typo, yeah, sure it was a typo. How does an educated person make a "typo" of billlion instead of trillion? Your whole post tried to suggest that some how Bangladesh contributes more (in troops and money) because they may have sent more human lives to be at the disposal of the UN. Sorry, but I don't WANT the USA to send my fellow Americans to be tools for the in effective UN.
Do you have a reading problem? Where in the world did you get yor "facts"? While Bangladesh may have a GDP of $275 billion, the USA has a GDP of $11.75 TRILLION! $11.75 Trillion > (is greater than) $275 Billion.
Hmm... IE has about 90% market share, Firefox has about 8%. For the mathematically challenged, that leaves about 2% for the "other" browsers, including NutScrape. What HP idiot said, "Hey, why don't we give the option to install a crappy re-branded Mozilla to our users that less than 1% of users want/use?" and gets PAID for that idea?
<conspiracy type="MS">
Maybe MS paid HP to do this so that all the Joe Users will say, "See, Mozilla/Firefox/NutScrape do suck"?
</conspiracy>
I have no clue what would make a bunch of PHB's at HP think this is good idea. HP could have spent a _little_ money on research (hint: buy a report from WebSideStory) to see that the _ONLY_ browser users have been interested in besides IE has been Firefox.
That has nothing to do with the USA/Cold War/The Western World. Before Russia, it was the U.S.S.R. One big communistic sh!thole. People had no freedom, the "government" controlled everything. Today, Russia is leaning again toward an authoritarian regime. Either Communism or an authoritarian regime will pretty much make any place a sh!thole.
Russia has been in a shithole for the last 15 years, and is only beginning to climb out of it
Russia ended 2004 with its sixth straight year of growth, averaging 6.5% annually since the financial crisis of 1998. Russia has a GDP of 1.4 Trillion (2004) and is ranked 12th in the world. Russia is growing well.
So I take it that you are suggesting I take the plunge and do the upgrage?:) I guess I will, though it sucks that I have to pay $30-$40 to upgrade the screen when I just bought the GBA-SP only a few weeks ago. Oh-well, you live and learn ; )
I just bought a GBA SP about 3 weeks ago. I wonder how much credit I would get from EBGames as a trade-in for this newer version. The GBA SP LCD is a little too dim. The manual recommends having the light off for better battery time. Though I have never been able to really see the screen with it off, even if I am standing outside down here in Sunny Florida.
What you are suggesting won't work. You don't get CREDIT for your trade-ins until they are received by the person(s) you sent them to and they rate if the DVD(s) were working. Once you have CREDIT or peerbux you can then request a DVD be sent to you.
I guess I'm just pretty cynical, and relying upon other Joes to send me their movies in a reasonalble timeframe with reasonable quality.
There is a review system. Send out a bad disk, you get a bad mark and can be banned. You have to give your mailing address to Peerflix so it would be easy to ban that mailing address from the system and not allow you to re-register with it.
When a DVD you have listed is requested, you click a button to "mail this disk". The next screen asks you to promise to mail it within 24 hours. They know when you agreed to send it out. If you take too long, you can get banned.
There will always be people who try to abuse any system. However, the peer review will weed out the baddies.
For me this seems better than renting or paying $18/mo for Netflix. I am married with a 4 year-old and a 16 month old. I only have time to maybe watch 1-2 movies a month. Netflix wouldn't be worth it for me. The traditional movie rental store is also getting old. I don't want to worry about late-fees, etc. I have also been using the video-on-demand service of my cable provider. It is better than going out and renting, though it has drawbacks of only being able to watch the movie for a few hours. There has been a few times my wife and I have been worn out from the day and rent a VOD movie and have fallen asleep, that is a waste of $4.
I personally would rather have the DVD and be able to watch it on my schedule. I don't like to buy too many DVD's because if I don't like it, I just wasted $10-$20 on it. With Peerflix, it looks like I can trade in movies I no longer watch and try something new. If I like it, I can keep it, if not, I trade it back for something else. Though the success of Peerflix will obviously depend on how many users they can get on their service.
It would be the MPAA and not the RIAA. However, I don't see how the MPAA could win. PeerFlix is the same exact thing as EBay. Peerflix is just the middle-man handling the LEGAL transaction between two citizens exercising their right of First-sale.
The only option the MPAA would have would seem to be to bribe the corrupted politicians to pass a new law banning First-sale doctrine.
I just signed up for the service to give it a try. I have some DVD's that I just don't watch anymore. There is no legal reason why I should not be able to sell/trade them for different movies that were also legally purchased.
The Peerflix system makes you put in the UPC code on the back of the DVD box to be able to list it for potential trade. You can't just type in a name of a DVD and say "hey, lets trade". I think the system is actually pretty cool. You cannot trade copied movies. If you do, you get banned. So all of the DVD's were legally purchased and the MPAA made their money off of them.
I personally think it is pretty sad that the reaction to this type of service would be that "people are bad and will just copy and send". I am tired of the MPAA/RIAA assuming that I am a criminal. I will be happy to never give them another penny of my money again.
2. A cobbled-together solution based as much as possible on OSS (as no direct equivalent exists).
Well, it sounds like you are an MS-Only type guy with limited experience outside of the proprietary MS-World. There are some excellent solutions that run under Linux. Have you looked at Novell GroupWise?
Novell GroupWise is a complete collaboration software solution that provides information workers with e-mail, calendaring, instant messaging, task management, and contact and document management functions. The leading alternative to Microsoft Exchange, GroupWise has long been praised by customers and industry watchers for its security and reliability
GroupWise is cross platform, unlike MS Exchange/AD. GroupWise has plenty of free tools to help you along the way like:
GroupWise Migration Utility 2.0.1 for Microsoft Exchange
GroupWise PDA Connect 1.0 SP1 Multi Lingual
GroupWise Import Utility 2.0 for Microsoft Outlook
GroupWise Gateway 2.0 for Async Connections
GroupWise Gateway 3.0 for Lotus Notes
Just check out Novell to see some of their products (no, I do not work for Novell, I just like some of their products).
Also, there are some really great LDAP/IMAP type solutions you can put together under Linux for zero cost. Obviously this option requires someone more capable than your typical point-n-click "MS-Admin". It would take one employee with the ability to read a book or some docs. Though, I know your typical point-n-click "MS-Admin" wants to be able to just put in a CD and let AUTO-RUN do all the "hard" work for them.
If I personally owned a small company with ~100 employees, I would rather have one talented admin that could handle *nix/Win than 2-3 point-n-click MS "admins". If you added up the salaries, that one guy would cost you less than the 2-3 less capable point-n-click MS "admins". TIJMO (This is just my opinion).
Some students get access to a _small_ part of the Windows OS source code at some schools. The amount of code they get to see under the "shared" source stuff is very small. Governments (even the US govt.) don't even get access to 100% of the MS OS source code through the "shared" source initiative. MS is proprietary and they don't give up their code not matter what the MS-Marketing-Machine tries to say. End of story.
The problem with the GPL is that if you use even a few lines of GPL code, you have to release the whole thing under the GPL..
Really? I guess you have never used Windows Services for UNIX? SFU contains GPLed code. Strange. MS has not had to release the entire SFU code base. Wait. Could the whole GPL-cancer crap just be some MS-FUD? I would bet yes. If the FUD MS has said is true, why don't I have access to the whole MS Windows XP code base?
People have such a negative image of communism. I'll be the first to admit that in practice, it fails horribly due to human nature, but as a concept, it's great.
Uh, yeah, every one is equal is a _great_ concept. Why exactly should I spend 8 years in college and then another 2+ years as an intern to be a doctor to get paid the same as some bum who drops out of high school and flips burgers? Why should I spend 8 years in college to study physics to get paid the same as some lazy person who doesn't work and is on welfare? Why should I struggle to start my own business to only get paid the same as... oh wait... I can't own my own business, it is all owned by the "state".
Look at Russia. The nation went down hard because they couldn't compete with a free nation. They had a few smart people, but most of them were under threat to produce. Look at China. They don't even come close to the GDP of the USA. The only thing China has to offer is cheap labor. That cheap labor means that most of the Chinese workers are living in poor standards, especially compared to the USA and most of Europe. China will never be able to totally compete against the USA or the UK when it comes to technology because there is no motivation to excel in communism. People want to excel to get rewards.
I had to study to become a programmer. I have to keep studying to stay current as a programmer so that I have marketable skills. What would be my motivation to put in that work if I were only paid the same as the guy who picks up my trash cans? For me, there would be none.
Communism sucks, it doesn't work, it will never work.
Huh? The big X in the top right of the program is to CLOSE THE PROGRAM, just like it does for just about every other application you run. If you want to close a tab in FF, take your pick:
CTRL+W
Right Click on a tab -> Close Tab
Click X button that is in-line with your tabs on the right of the tab bar
Huh? You are quoting _SOUTH_ Korea. There is a _huge_ difference between what South Korea wants and what North Korea wants. South Korea is basically democratic. North Korea is a dictatorship.
where some of the people actually dislike each other. I don't think the North and South Korean people actually dislike each other
I agree with you there. However, there is the HUGE problem of the North Korean dictator that is know for having pretty bad human rights violations. I doubt many South Koreans would volunteer to be a part of that.
If you're wanting to know your next ID number before inserting data, you're screwed in MySQL. MySQL uses "auto_increment" fields that just add one to the previous row's value, while PostgreSQL uses what are called sequences which are guaranteed to always return a unique value, and you use those for your ID fields. In MySQL, there's no way of finding out the next value in an auto_increment sequence until you've committed a row to the database, while PostgreSQL lets you peek at the next value in the sequence.
To be fair, MySQL is not the only DB to do this. Microsoft SQL Server uses an "auto" increment field as well called identity columns. Once the record is inserted you better store the value of @@IDENTITY or you can have @@IDENTITY crisis This is in contrast to a sequence like in Oracle and PostgreSQL. I guess it depends on what side of the fence you started off in. I have done many projects in Oracle, MS SQL and MySQL and think that a sequence is much more handy over an auto increment/identity column, YMMV.
A good Christian recognises and follows the rules laid down in the old testament.
They do? When was the last time you heard of people sacraficing a bird or heifer? Jews don't even follow all the old laws in the Hebrew Scriptures.
I have come not to abolish but to fulfill
And according to the New Testament, that is what Jesus did. He fullfiled the prophecies and gave new laws. When Jesus was asked what are the greatest of the commandments, He didn't say go and read the Torah for the 10 commandments. He said to love God with all your heart, mind and sould and to love one another as he loves us.
Why did you not put the whole verse of Mark 7:10? To understand what it is saying you need to start back around Mark 7:5.
Mark 7:5-25 (New American Standard Bible) 5The Pharisees and the scribes asked Him, "Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands?"
6And He said to them, "Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: 'THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME. 7BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME, TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.'
8"Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the (E)tradition of men."
9He was also saying to them, "You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition.
10"For Moses said, 'HONOR YOUR FATHER AND YOUR MOTHER'; and, 'HE WHO SPEAKS EVIL OF FATHER OR MOTHER, IS TO BE PUT TO DEATH';
11but you say, 'If a man says to his father or his mother, whatever I have that would help you is Corban (that is to say, given to God),'
12you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or his mother;
13thus invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many things such as that."
14After He called the crowd to Him again, He began saying to them, "Listen to Me, all of you, and understand:
15there is nothing outside the man which can defile him if it goes into him; but the things which proceed out of the man are what defile the man.
16["If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear."]
17When he had left the crowd and entered the house, His disciples questioned Him about the parable.
18And He said to them, "Are you so lacking in understanding also? Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him,
19because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and is eliminated?" (Thus He declared all foods clean.)
20And He was saying, "That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man.
21"For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries,
22deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness.
23"All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man."
So Jesus did remove the old laws (or most of them). The old laws said not to eat pork because it was considered "unclean". Jesus changed that in the words above and decalred all foods clean. "there is nothing outside the man which can defile him if it goes into him; but the things which proceed out of the man are what defile the man.".
It sure as hell did sound that way, how else would you interpret "the the sickness of Islam...
That was called a few too many beers, I meant to expand that to the typical radical Islam of the Middle East.
Right there you are so far off the mark that it is ridiculous. How many middle-eastern Muslims do you know? Sounds like the answer is zero.
Sorry, chump, I mean champ but you are wrong. I personally know 15 middle-eastern men and women Muslims that moved to the USA. The ones I know are from Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan. The family that lives next door to me are from Saudi Arabia (a very nice family) and a fellow team member on my programming team was born and raised in Saudi Arabia and also lived in Afghanistan before he moved to the states.
How much tv do you watch? Sounds like the answer is way too much. How much tv do you watch?
Sorry, chump, I mean champ but you are wrong. About 1 hour per week. My wife and I are not into TV and spend our time with our children doing constructive activities. There is not much on TV that I like. I mostly watch Discovery or the Science Channel.
You really need to take my comments about the KKK being representative of white Americans to heart, because that is EXACTLY the logical fallacy you are promoting with your ignorant, bombastic claims.
Get a grip on realty dude. That is not even close. There are not millions of KKK members in the USA. The majority of the USA does not want to kill someone because they practice a different religion or no religion at all.
Oh and fuck you with your charges of being PC and "side-stepping" the issues of abuse of women in the middle east. If you knew shit about the topic you would know that these abuses stem as much from tribal beliefs that predate Islam as they do from extremists within the religion, its just reactionaries that seek whatever cover they can find in Islam to justify their own personal fucked up morality.
Ahh, how mature. Oh, and the old "it is an old tradition" excuse for perpetuating the discrimination of women in Middle Eastern Islam. How quaint.
There is an arabic saying, much like Shakespeare's- "The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose," that "tribalists cover their actions with the cloak of islam." On the other hand, the reactionary response to problems like tribalism has been puritanical sects like salafism which can be just as easily do the same kinds of evil acts with a whole different bizarre intrepretation of islam. However, neither are mainstream islam, in the middle east or anywhere else
That has to be one of _the_ dumbest things I have ever heard and it doesn't even come close to the eloquence of Shakespeare.
Libertarianism works just fine in a small hamlet of a few people. In a nation pushing 300 million people, it would be a complete, utter disaster.
As you stated, "And your basis for this is...."?
Maybe just look at the govt. of Cuba and Venezuela? The members of those govts. are _far_ better off than the average citizen. In fact, there are not many (if any) citizens in Cuba and Venezuela that surpass the financial level of their govts. In contrast, here in the USA, there are more private citizens financially better off than the members of the govt. Hell, you add of the top few hundred USA citizens wealth and they surpass what the legislative body of the govt. makes.
Big. Fucking. Deal. Even in socialist countries, you have to run for office. Running for office takes money. So, if a person has been elected for office, it probably means they have money. Now, would you like me to explain how 1 + 1 = 2?
Ahh, yes, when you don't have a valid argument, curse and call names, that always works. Exactly _why_ does it cost money to run for govt. in a Socialist system? Shouldn't the Socialist govt. pay for that? Oh, yea, I am sure that _any_ citizen in Cuba or Venezuela can just run for government if they have enough votes. Umm, wait they can't. When was the last time someone ran against Castro?
What a bunch of retarded crap. So, no person who is rich can try and help someone who is poor, without making their lives as bad as the ones they are trying to help, or they are just a phoney? How dumb are you?
Damn dude, did you even graduate from high school? You don't sound like it. How exactly do you extrapolate what you based your comment above on from what I wrote:
In Cuba and Venezuela, those in power are extremely wealthy and well provided for, while the rest of those two nations suffers. To me that is _nothing_ like what a "text book" Socialist govt. should be. Do you think Mr. Chavez is suffering with his poor? Nope. Do you think Castro is suffering with his poor? Nope.
Socialism is an ideology with the core belief that a society should exist in which popular collectives control the means of power, and therefore the means of production. In application, however, the de facto meaning of socialism has changed with time. Although it is a politically loaded term, it remains strongly related to the establishment of an organized working class, created through either revolution or social evolution, with the purpose of building a
classless society
So exactly _how_ do you have true Socialism if you have rich politicians making all the rules? As far as the rich helping the poor; well that happens _all_ the time here in the USA. People who are well-off help those less fortunate from free will, and not from some govt. mandated "ideal" of a classless society, which is really just nothing more than the leaders being very rich and comfortable while the rest of the people live in poverty.
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SCREW THE FISH! I would rather see one HUMAN saved and see ALL the marine life in the world wiped out than one HUMAN killed to save all the marine life.
Ask yourself this question; if you were given the choice between being killed and having all marine life preserved or living and having all marine life destroyed, which would you pick? How about if the question was changed a little to replace you with your wife/boyfriend/lover/daughter/son? Would you make that sacrifice of the person you love the most to save some freaking fish? I know I WOULD NOT.
I find it pretty sick that people could even ask "what about the marine life" when the only other alternative would be to sacrifice HUMAN lives. Men and women that have mothers/fathers/girlfriends/boyfriends/children that LOVE and NEED them.
When will our world be free of these idiots that put plants and animals above HUMAN life?
I will tell you my opinion. I would rather live in a world where no human ever suffers again that is void of ALL other life, than live in a world where non-human life flourishes and HUMAN life suffers. Yes, life would suck without other natural species, but I would do it to save HUMANS. Note: for the PETA-tree-lovers; I have personally owned: cats(5), dogs(8), spiders(50) (including the largets species Goliath Birdeater), snakes(~200) ([albino]Burmese python, African rock python, blood python, corn, rat, green boa, emerald tree boa, rainbow boa, boa constrictor, anaconda), Anoles, Chameleons (Oustelet's, Fischer's, Veil), Gecko (African Fat tail, Crested Gecko, Giant Day, Tokay), Iguanid(Blue Spiny Swift, Brown Basilisk, Emerald Swift, Texas Spiny Swift), Monitors(Black/Golden Tegu, Nile, Savannah) and Bearded Dragons. I don't think _anyone_ could call me an animal "hater".
I would venture a guess that about 20% of all software patents are even close to being an "invention" (and 20% is extremely generous). Heck, I don't think _any_ software patent is an "invention". Why should one person/group/company be allowed to patent a method of doing something with software? Is a chef allowed to patent his/her method of preparation of a recipe? Nope. Is a mathematician allowed to patent his/her method of a proof? Nope. Can I patent my "method" of telling you how to inflate your tires? Nope (well, maybe, the US PTO is really that bad). Software patents are no different than the above examples. Software IS NOTHIGN BUT INSTRUCTION TO A COMPUTER! Why should you be allowed to lock anyone out of telling a computer how to do "one click" to buy an item for a repeat customer? Why should you be allowed to lock people out of telling a computer how to react to certain mouse clicks (MS)? Sadly big business has once again bribed our "representatives" into allowing laws to protect their business methods.
I have a good idea. Software patents should cost $0 for people who do not work for a large corporation (say, any company doing less than $500 million a year). Oh, and that small corporation must not have any ties, financial or whatever, to a large corporation. This way, all the little guys out there could rack up a boat load of patents and sue the crap out of the big corps.
I am personally glad that this group of non-producing pond scum is suing RIM. I personally hope to see any successful product be sued out of existence by a group/person that only owns "IP". This way maybe the big corps will throw around their bribe money to the crooked politician and maybe we would see the end of software patents.
Did anyone else notice other OSS software in the list that SuSE left out of the OSS version claiming that it is NOT OSS when in fact it is?
And your whole Walmart "argument" of (and Walmart, with ~ $300 billion in revenue) is just stupid. Walmart's _SALES_ (which is ___way___ different than Walmart's _PROFITS_) of ~$300 billion does NOT add ~$300 billion to the US GDP dumbass. It is not as if you take away Walmart's ~$300 billion in _SALES_ and all of a sudden the USA GDP drops by ~$300 billion dumbass.
And your "excuse" of a typo, yeah, sure it was a typo. How does an educated person make a "typo" of billlion instead of trillion? Your whole post tried to suggest that some how Bangladesh contributes more (in troops and money) because they may have sent more human lives to be at the disposal of the UN. Sorry, but I don't WANT the USA to send my fellow Americans to be tools for the in effective UN.
Do you have a reading problem? Where in the world did you get yor "facts"? While Bangladesh may have a GDP of $275 billion, the USA has a GDP of $11.75 TRILLION! $11.75 Trillion > (is greater than) $275 Billion.
<conspiracy type="MS">
Maybe MS paid HP to do this so that all the Joe Users will say, "See, Mozilla/Firefox/NutScrape do suck"?
</conspiracy>
I have no clue what would make a bunch of PHB's at HP think this is good idea. HP could have spent a _little_ money on research (hint: buy a report from WebSideStory) to see that the _ONLY_ browser users have been interested in besides IE has been Firefox.
So I take it that you are suggesting I take the plunge and do the upgrage? :) I guess I will, though it sucks that I have to pay $30-$40 to upgrade the screen when I just bought the GBA-SP only a few weeks ago. Oh-well, you live and learn ; )
I just bought a GBA SP about 3 weeks ago. I wonder how much credit I would get from EBGames as a trade-in for this newer version. The GBA SP LCD is a little too dim. The manual recommends having the light off for better battery time. Though I have never been able to really see the screen with it off, even if I am standing outside down here in Sunny Florida.
What you are suggesting won't work. You don't get CREDIT for your trade-ins until they are received by the person(s) you sent them to and they rate if the DVD(s) were working. Once you have CREDIT or peerbux you can then request a DVD be sent to you.
When a DVD you have listed is requested, you click a button to "mail this disk". The next screen asks you to promise to mail it within 24 hours. They know when you agreed to send it out. If you take too long, you can get banned.
There will always be people who try to abuse any system. However, the peer review will weed out the baddies.
For me this seems better than renting or paying $18/mo for Netflix. I am married with a 4 year-old and a 16 month old. I only have time to maybe watch 1-2 movies a month. Netflix wouldn't be worth it for me. The traditional movie rental store is also getting old. I don't want to worry about late-fees, etc. I have also been using the video-on-demand service of my cable provider. It is better than going out and renting, though it has drawbacks of only being able to watch the movie for a few hours. There has been a few times my wife and I have been worn out from the day and rent a VOD movie and have fallen asleep, that is a waste of $4.
I personally would rather have the DVD and be able to watch it on my schedule. I don't like to buy too many DVD's because if I don't like it, I just wasted $10-$20 on it. With Peerflix, it looks like I can trade in movies I no longer watch and try something new. If I like it, I can keep it, if not, I trade it back for something else. Though the success of Peerflix will obviously depend on how many users they can get on their service.
The only option the MPAA would have would seem to be to bribe the corrupted politicians to pass a new law banning First-sale doctrine.
I just signed up for the service to give it a try. I have some DVD's that I just don't watch anymore. There is no legal reason why I should not be able to sell/trade them for different movies that were also legally purchased.
The Peerflix system makes you put in the UPC code on the back of the DVD box to be able to list it for potential trade. You can't just type in a name of a DVD and say "hey, lets trade". I think the system is actually pretty cool. You cannot trade copied movies. If you do, you get banned. So all of the DVD's were legally purchased and the MPAA made their money off of them.
I personally think it is pretty sad that the reaction to this type of service would be that "people are bad and will just copy and send". I am tired of the MPAA/RIAA assuming that I am a criminal. I will be happy to never give them another penny of my money again.
- GroupWise Migration Utility 2.0.1 for Microsoft Exchange
- GroupWise PDA Connect 1.0 SP1 Multi Lingual
- GroupWise Import Utility 2.0 for Microsoft Outlook
- GroupWise Gateway 2.0 for Async Connections
- GroupWise Gateway 3.0 for Lotus Notes
Just check out Novell to see some of their products (no, I do not work for Novell, I just like some of their products).Also, there are some really great LDAP/IMAP type solutions you can put together under Linux for zero cost. Obviously this option requires someone more capable than your typical point-n-click "MS-Admin". It would take one employee with the ability to read a book or some docs. Though, I know your typical point-n-click "MS-Admin" wants to be able to just put in a CD and let AUTO-RUN do all the "hard" work for them.
If I personally owned a small company with ~100 employees, I would rather have one talented admin that could handle *nix/Win than 2-3 point-n-click MS "admins". If you added up the salaries, that one guy would cost you less than the 2-3 less capable point-n-click MS "admins". TIJMO (This is just my opinion).
Some students get access to a _small_ part of the Windows OS source code at some schools. The amount of code they get to see under the "shared" source stuff is very small. Governments (even the US govt.) don't even get access to 100% of the MS OS source code through the "shared" source initiative. MS is proprietary and they don't give up their code not matter what the MS-Marketing-Machine tries to say. End of story.
Look at Russia. The nation went down hard because they couldn't compete with a free nation. They had a few smart people, but most of them were under threat to produce. Look at China. They don't even come close to the GDP of the USA. The only thing China has to offer is cheap labor. That cheap labor means that most of the Chinese workers are living in poor standards, especially compared to the USA and most of Europe. China will never be able to totally compete against the USA or the UK when it comes to technology because there is no motivation to excel in communism. People want to excel to get rewards.
I had to study to become a programmer. I have to keep studying to stay current as a programmer so that I have marketable skills. What would be my motivation to put in that work if I were only paid the same as the guy who picks up my trash cans? For me, there would be none.
Communism sucks, it doesn't work, it will never work.
Why did you not put the whole verse of Mark 7:10? To understand what it is saying you need to start back around Mark 7:5.
So Jesus did remove the old laws (or most of them). The old laws said not to eat pork because it was considered "unclean". Jesus changed that in the words above and decalred all foods clean. "there is nothing outside the man which can defile him if it goes into him; but the things which proceed out of the man are what defile the man.".Maybe just look at the govt. of Cuba and Venezuela? The members of those govts. are _far_ better off than the average citizen. In fact, there are not many (if any) citizens in Cuba and Venezuela that surpass the financial level of their govts. In contrast, here in the USA, there are more private citizens financially better off than the members of the govt. Hell, you add of the top few hundred USA citizens wealth and they surpass what the legislative body of the govt. makes.
Ahh, yes, when you don't have a valid argument, curse and call names, that always works. Exactly _why_ does it cost money to run for govt. in a Socialist system? Shouldn't the Socialist govt. pay for that? Oh, yea, I am sure that _any_ citizen in Cuba or Venezuela can just run for government if they have enough votes. Umm, wait they can't. When was the last time someone ran against Castro?Damn dude, did you even graduate from high school? You don't sound like it. How exactly do you extrapolate what you based your comment above on from what I wrote: To your extremely childish conclusion? Why don't we look at the definition of Socialism over at WikiPedia So exactly _how_ do you have true Socialism if you have rich politicians making all the rules? As far as the rich helping the poor; well that happens _all_ the time here in the USA. People who are well-off help those less fortunate from free will, and not from some govt. mandated "ideal" of a classless society, which is really just nothing more than the leaders being very rich and comfortable while the rest of the people live in poverty.