Students are paying to attend, and the university provides them with an education. The 'contract' between 'student' and 'school' ends at that.
That's a silly thing to say. Just for starters, every school has a student conduct code of some sort. There are many, many legal obligations that both the student and the school must meet. To turn this to the topic at hand, many schools do have a specific policy about not using lecture notes for commercial purposes without the professors permission. I happen to agree with that. What? Do you think professors don't actually do anything? (Accepting that there will always be a few crappy professors) If I were a college professor, I would gladly grant permision to sell lecture notes (subject to my approval). But I sure as hell would be pissed if students started making money selling lecture notes behind my back.
Mozilla has continuous rolling builds hooked up to Tinderbox. You break the build and your name shows up in big red lights. This is pretty standard. You shouldn't check into a tree until you've tried it...that only makes sense.
Well that's the problem, see. He wasn't disagreeing with my post. His post had little or nothing to do with my post.
I never said that criticizing socialism was nonsense. I said that ESR did not spout nonsense in his essay. I said that I thought this was a good thing. The only specific mention I made of my political bent was in my.sig.
I had my fill of debating politics on Slashdot a while ago. I view messages like his as somewhat akin to religious people trying to convert me uninvited. If I had said, "What ESR said about socialism is nonsense", I would view that as an open invitation to argue with me. However, when someone responds to my message with an unrelated message criticizing my (apparent) views, well, I view that as a troll.
OTOH, I probably shouldn't have flamed him. It was a nice vent but unproductive. Sorry.
Actually, I was also worried that he would make some rash and insulting statement, but he seems to be behaving himself today.:) I couldn't find fault with anything he said. A bit extreme, to be sure, but China does have an oppressive, totalitarian regime.
I actually have to commend him in that he didn't take this obvious oportunity to start spouting insulting nonsense about the evils of communism/socialism.
You are getting screwed, but you probably already knew that.
Beyond that, I've always found contracts that don't allow you to discuss your salary to be a big red flag. Every company I've ever seen that included that sort of clause has not impressed me. Think about it...why would they stipulate that? It's almost a sort of security by obscurity...and we know how well that works.
Let me guess, they also have some stupid (and probably invalid/illegal) non-compete clause as well, right?
When I say morals, I'm not speaking of something that is necesarily good, or that I agree with. I actually wasn't making any judgement on how the system currently is. I just wanted to present one way of looking at the laws vs. morals issue.
Incidentally, I happen to agree with you...most people are under-educated(not stupid) and/or poorly informed...which is why the government is in the sorry state that it is in. I think the best solution is to educate the people. If you teach them how to make intellegent and informed decisions, the entire society will benefit (via better laws, better leaders, etc.)
Actually, I was just comparing laws to morals, but now that you mention it, psycotic socialist moral relativist kook would be more accurate. Actually, I'm not really a moral relativist exactly. Moral relativism breaks down when you get into a core set of morals which, I believe, are universal to all cultures. I do think that there is a huge amount of variance in morals, and that societies tend to play games with morals quite a bit (i.e. It's bad to kill people, unless sentenced to death by a judge)
GnrcMan The psychotic athiest socialist moral relativist kook
The moral issue is: is it right to punish Microsoft for using its well-earned influence in one market to promote its product in another market? How is this anything but a moral issue?
Because morals vary. One person may say it is "immoral" to punish microsoft for it's success, while someone else my say it's actually immoral to stand by the side and let microsoft use it's, as they see it, unstopable power to do others harm.
If morals were used to decide arguments, the courts would be in chaos. The only thing we have are laws. While laws may (and should, in many cases) reflect morals, they are entirely different. In fact, you could think of laws as the colective morals of a country, but your moral issue fails to reflect that. The issue really is this: Is it legal to punish Microsoft for using it's well-earned influence in one market to promote its product in another market?
If the answer to that is yes, but the majority of the country thinks that it is immoral to do so, then the laws of the country should be changed to reflect the changing morals of the the majority of the country.
Wow...that brings back memories. In '95, when I was in college, I bought an HP 48GX, in hopes that my boring math classes could get done with more quickly...Needless to say, it didn't work, the 48GX was simply an expensive vehicle to play Tetris on during math class. Anyway, I remember downloading the remote control program. It was neat except they disabled the IR so that you could only transmit a short distance, to curtail cheating.
Anyway, does anyone remember the "Tricorder" program for the HP? It would beep more quickly based on the proximity of the IR sensor to some mildly reflective surface. That was mildly amusing. A fun processor to hack on too!
I recall the breaking point is 2014, so if the year number is part of the patent this may not be relevant, however that also makes the patent easy to circumvent.
Nope, it's more general than that. A quote from the patent: The window may be arbitrarily selected. For example, the decade could begin with the 1950's and end with the 2040's, or it could begin with the 1980's and end with the 2070's.
Since submitting the article, I've found the patent in question. Here is a link to the abstract. The patent number is 5,806,063, and application was filed on 10/3/96. There's gotta be prior art.
Oh, and by way of correction. McDonnell Douglas assigned the patent to the inventor, Bruce Dickens. Mr. Dicken's (and his attorneys) are the ones running around threatening everyone.
I second that! My long time girlfriend, while she has very little interest in computers, is very intelligent. A classics major, in fact. She speaks Latin, I speak C++, and somewhere in the confusion, we get along. She's greatly balanced my life, but if she ever caught me writing anything close to Roblimo's piece...well...I suppose the couch isn't that uncomfortable.:)
SomeGuy (changed to protect the messenger) Amazon.com
FYI, I know someone who works at amazon.com customer service. 99 percent of responses, including the one you recieved, are form replies, slightly customized. Don't bother flaming the people who answer the e-mails. They doesn't care...really. Your letter won't even make them feel bad. It's a pretty low paying and mindless job and, chances are, no one who matters will see your e-mail. The simple fact that you object to the patent/lawsuit, however, will probably filter up the ranks. Specifics of your clever insult will not. Now if we could find Jeff Bezos' e-mail address...:)
Seriously, your best bet is a short, succinct, polite objection. Anything more and you're wasting keystrokes.
They are basically IT analysts. The charge huge bucks for reports on various technologies, companies, etc. For example, here's a report they sell: GartnerGroup Outlook on Healthcare IT Business Trends, Market Forces and Technology Order Code 5630 Four volumes plus audio Price US$4,995
(From Abian's paper) . At the primeval stage, the Cosmic mass was violently sucked out from its primeval state (perhaps as a primeval fireball) and with a furious and tempestuous force was fulminated into the Space giving rise to the existing Cosmos. I call that stage "The Big Suck Stage" and the corresponding theory "The Big Suck Theory" (contrary to the currently held "The Big Bang Theory" which is nonconvincing to many).
Well, it certainly does suck.
I appologize for shamelessly nicking that from Wayne's World.
Patenting one-click shopping is like Slashdot patenting 0-click logins. When I go to www.slashdot.org, the web site knows who I am without any intervention! What Amazon has, while it may not be implemented anywhere else, was invented the day cookies were invented. As was pointed out before, I can call for pizza and with caller ID, they don't even have to ask for my name. It's exactly the same process. To patent an invention, the invention must be non-obvious. I'm sorry but one-click ordering is obvious.
The patent itself isn't ridiculous in this case. The problem is that Unisys didn't enforce the patent until it was popularized by the GIF file format. At that point it was so entrenched that, although unencumbered compression algorithms exist, companies were force to licence the LZW technology in order to conform to the GIF standard. It's sort of like bait and switch.
Sure it's work (so is freshmeat), but certainly it's doable. (Disclaimer: I'm not saying this ficitional site would be perfect, but it would be better than what we have now which is a hodgepodge of several different sites. I ceratainly would like to take part in something like this.)
I'm working on this. I registered linuxpatch.com (not hosted yet) last week. E-mail me if you'd like to help. I'm still in the very early stages, though.
Slashdot Mirror
I managed to hack one up by setting up a postscript printer driver that fed ghostview. That was fun, but...
Sorry, I was just struck by the little things that indicate a true hacker. You're cool!
--GnrcMan--
Students are paying to attend, and the university provides them with an education. The 'contract' between 'student' and 'school' ends at that.
That's a silly thing to say. Just for starters, every school has a student conduct code of some sort. There are many, many legal obligations that both the student and the school must meet. To turn this to the topic at hand, many schools do have a specific policy about not using lecture notes for commercial purposes without the professors permission. I happen to agree with that. What? Do you think professors don't actually do anything? (Accepting that there will always be a few crappy professors)
If I were a college professor, I would gladly grant permision to sell lecture notes (subject to my approval). But I sure as hell would be pissed if students started making money selling lecture notes behind my back.
--GnrcMan--
Mozilla has continuous rolling builds hooked up to Tinderbox. You break the build and your name shows up in big red lights. This is pretty standard. You shouldn't check into a tree until you've tried it...that only makes sense.
--GnrcMan--
Sorry to be nitpicky (really sorry), but a hoax implies that Amazon intentionally deceived. Mistake is more appropriate.
Yes, I think it must be a mistake. PDA? C'mon! Right.
--GnrcMan--
Well that's the problem, see. He wasn't disagreeing with my post. His post had little or nothing to do with my post.
.sig.
I never said that criticizing socialism was nonsense. I said that ESR did not spout nonsense in his essay. I said that I thought this was a good thing. The only specific mention I made of my political bent was in my
I had my fill of debating politics on Slashdot a while ago. I view messages like his as somewhat akin to religious people trying to convert me uninvited. If I had said, "What ESR said about socialism is nonsense", I would view that as an open invitation to argue with me. However, when someone responds to my message with an unrelated message criticizing my (apparent) views, well, I view that as a troll.
OTOH, I probably shouldn't have flamed him. It was a nice vent but unproductive. Sorry.
--GnrcMan--
(Sorry for this)
(FLAME ON)
Did I make any indication that I wanted to debate politics with you? Go away...troll.
(FLAME OFF)
--GnrcMan--
Actually, I was also worried that he would make some rash and insulting statement, but he seems to be behaving himself today. :) I couldn't find fault with anything he said. A bit extreme, to be sure, but China does have an oppressive, totalitarian regime.
I actually have to commend him in that he didn't take this obvious oportunity to start spouting insulting nonsense about the evils of communism/socialism.
--GnrcMan--
You are getting screwed, but you probably already knew that.
Beyond that, I've always found contracts that don't allow you to discuss your salary to be a big red flag. Every company I've ever seen that included that sort of clause has not impressed me. Think about it...why would they stipulate that? It's almost a sort of security by obscurity...and we know how well that works.
Let me guess, they also have some stupid (and probably invalid/illegal) non-compete clause as well, right?
--GnrcMan--
When I say morals, I'm not speaking of something that is necesarily good, or that I agree with. I actually wasn't making any judgement on how the system currently is. I just wanted to present one way of looking at the laws vs. morals issue.
Incidentally, I happen to agree with you...most people are under-educated(not stupid) and/or poorly informed...which is why the government is in the sorry state that it is in. I think the best solution is to educate the people. If you teach them how to make intellegent and informed decisions, the entire society will benefit (via better laws, better leaders, etc.)
--GnrcMan--
Actually, I was just comparing laws to morals, but now that you mention it, psycotic socialist moral relativist kook would be more accurate. Actually, I'm not really a moral relativist exactly. Moral relativism breaks down when you get into a core set of morals which, I believe, are universal to all cultures. I do think that there is a huge amount of variance in morals, and that societies tend to play games with morals quite a bit (i.e. It's bad to kill people, unless sentenced to death by a judge)
GnrcMan
The psychotic athiest socialist moral relativist kook
--GnrcMan--
The moral issue is: is it right to punish Microsoft for using its well-earned influence in one market to promote its product in another market? How is this anything but a moral issue?
Because morals vary. One person may say it is "immoral" to punish microsoft for it's success, while someone else my say it's actually immoral to stand by the side and let microsoft use it's, as they see it, unstopable power to do others harm.
If morals were used to decide arguments, the courts would be in chaos. The only thing we have are laws. While laws may (and should, in many cases) reflect morals, they are entirely different. In fact, you could think of laws as the colective morals of a country, but your moral issue fails to reflect that. The issue really is this: Is it legal to punish Microsoft for using it's well-earned influence in one market to promote its product in another market?
If the answer to that is yes, but the majority of the country thinks that it is immoral to do so, then the laws of the country should be changed to reflect the changing morals of the the majority of the country.
Hope that's clear
GnrcMan
--GnrcMan--
Finally, somewhere where the EU is ahead of the USA.
Don't forget GSM phones. They work everywhere but the US.
--GnrcMan--
Wow...that brings back memories. In '95, when I was in college, I bought an HP 48GX, in hopes that my boring math classes could get done with more quickly...Needless to say, it didn't work, the 48GX was simply an expensive vehicle to play Tetris on during math class. Anyway, I remember downloading the remote control program. It was neat except they disabled the IR so that you could only transmit a short distance, to curtail cheating.
Anyway, does anyone remember the "Tricorder" program for the HP? It would beep more quickly based on the proximity of the IR sensor to some mildly reflective surface. That was mildly amusing. A fun processor to hack on too!
--GnrcMan--
I recall the breaking point is 2014, so if the year number is part of the patent this may not be relevant, however that also makes the patent easy to circumvent.
Nope, it's more general than that. A quote from the patent:
The window may be arbitrarily selected. For example, the decade could begin with the 1950's and end with the 2040's, or it could begin with the 1980's and end with the 2070's.
--GnrcMan--
The patent you are referring to was not assigned to Bruce Dickens by McDonnell Douglas. The correct patent is 5,806,063
--GnrcMan--
Since submitting the article, I've found the patent in question. Here is a link to the abstract. The patent number is 5,806,063, and application was filed on 10/3/96. There's gotta be prior art.
Oh, and by way of correction. McDonnell Douglas assigned the patent to the inventor, Bruce Dickens. Mr. Dicken's (and his attorneys) are the ones running around threatening everyone.
--GnrcMan--
Actually, the article explains that they'd distribute luciferin in a fertilizer packet with the trees!
I second that! My long time girlfriend, while she has very little interest in computers, is very intelligent. A classics major, in fact. She speaks Latin, I speak C++, and somewhere in the confusion, we get along. She's greatly balanced my life, but if she ever caught me writing anything close to Roblimo's piece...well...I suppose the couch isn't that uncomfortable. :)
SomeGuy (changed to protect the messenger)
:)
Amazon.com
FYI, I know someone who works at amazon.com customer service. 99 percent of responses, including the one you recieved, are form replies, slightly customized. Don't bother flaming the people who answer the e-mails. They doesn't care...really. Your letter won't even make them feel bad. It's a pretty low paying and mindless job and, chances are, no one who matters will see your e-mail. The simple fact that you object to the patent/lawsuit, however, will probably filter up the ranks. Specifics of your clever insult will not. Now if we could find Jeff Bezos' e-mail address...
Seriously, your best bet is a short, succinct, polite objection. Anything more and you're wasting keystrokes.
Anyway who is this gartner group
They are basically IT analysts. The charge huge bucks for reports on various technologies, companies, etc. For example, here's a report they sell:
GartnerGroup Outlook on Healthcare IT Business Trends,
Market Forces and Technology
Order Code 5630 Four volumes plus audio Price US$4,995
They are actually well known and quite respected, though I'm not sure the respect is always deserved. Here is their really poorly done web site.
(From Abian's paper)
. At the primeval stage, the Cosmic mass was violently sucked out from its primeval state (perhaps as a primeval fireball) and with a furious and tempestuous force was fulminated into the Space giving rise to the existing Cosmos. I call that stage "The Big Suck Stage" and the corresponding theory "The Big Suck Theory" (contrary to the currently held "The Big Bang Theory" which is nonconvincing to many).
Well, it certainly does suck.
I appologize for shamelessly nicking that from Wayne's World.
First of all, you spelled cerebral wrong in your sig
He spelled Cuisinart wrong as well...Must be too much television.
Patenting one-click shopping is like Slashdot patenting 0-click logins. When I go to www.slashdot.org, the web site knows who I am without any intervention! What Amazon has, while it may not be implemented anywhere else, was invented the day cookies were invented. As was pointed out before, I can call for pizza and with caller ID, they don't even have to ask for my name. It's exactly the same process.
To patent an invention, the invention must be non-obvious. I'm sorry but one-click ordering is obvious.
The patent itself isn't ridiculous in this case. The problem is that Unisys didn't enforce the patent until it was popularized by the GIF file format. At that point it was so entrenched that, although unencumbered compression algorithms exist, companies were force to licence the LZW technology in order to conform to the GIF standard. It's sort of like bait and switch.
Sure it's work (so is freshmeat), but certainly it's doable. (Disclaimer: I'm not saying this ficitional site would be perfect, but it would be better than what we have now which is a hodgepodge of several different sites. I ceratainly would like to take part in something like this.)
I'm working on this. I registered linuxpatch.com (not hosted yet) last week. E-mail me if you'd like to help. I'm still in the very early stages, though.