A lot of the people on Facebook the MIT students predicted were gay were likely making no attempt to hide it and would have no objection to anyone knowing. Which makes the conclusion one big "so what?" A man who lists his favorite politician as Barney Frank, his favorite actress as Judy Garland, the city he would most like to live in as San Francisco, and who has among his friends the entire board of the campus gay and lesbian association is probably gay... but probably either doesn't care who knows or actually wants people to know.
Although you think this is a great example, most aftermarket parts put on a car voids the very important warranty unless it is all authorized dealer parts and service.
The Magusson-Moss warranty act states otherwise. And the auto aftermarket was one of the reasons for the anti-tying provision.
Why isn't anyone bitching at Microsoft for not letting any 3rd party apps on the Zune HD? Because no one even wants the device?
That, and it's Microsoft. Everyone expects Microsoft to do the wrong thing.
Netrek, XPilot, CrossFire. However, we haven't seen the patent, so conceivably it does contain some novel methods.
Patent 5,822,523 has 6 claims. The first, second, and sixth claims are definitely covered by Netrek. Actually, the earlier XTrek covers them as well. Of course, with the way the stupid patent system works, even if claim 1 (the only essential claim) is completely forseen by the prior art, the trivial additions in claims 3,4, and 5 still stand. Though I think 4 and 5 are covered by Netrek as well.
Claim 3 is covers the case where you wait for all the clients to send at least one message before sending out the aggregated message. It's probably covered by some other equally old software.
I don't understand why so many geeks on Slashdot have no concept how the patent system "works".
Because it doesn't.
I can patent a method of using IRC to arrange the delivery of baked goods and that would be a valid patent (actually, it's probably already patented). The patent would include a vague description of IRC. Geeks would read the patent and say "that's just IRC!!" and get all huffy about it. Well, duh, that's not the point, the point is I figured out a way to use IRC to get you baked goods.
But the claims would be written so expansively that they'd cover the use of IRC for all sorts of things, including things IRC was used for long before your patent. And the jury wouldn't see the difference either.
This patent has no such limitation in the claims. It's a straightforward claim of stuff that has been done before.
Pardon my ignorance here, but is there any reason the casing couldn't just be vacuum sealed such that there was no air in the chamber where the platters were spinning?
You'd need a whole new way of keeping the head off the platter. You'd have a problem with lubricants vaporizing. Heat would be a problem as well.
So negotiate with the artists for songs. If the songwriters don't give artists songs, the artists don't have new songs to play. Put it in the contract, make the artists and labels sign it.
They can't. There's a compulsory license. Once the song is out there, anyone can record it and sell recordings provided they pay the statutory royalty rate.
It wasn't environmentalists who pushed it; it was companies who saw the financial benefit of doing so.
Right. The RoHS is just a figment of our imagination; electronics companies actually decided to use crappier, more expensive solder in order to promote planned obsolescence.
Seriously, we've been hit twice in the solder department. First it was water-based fluxes (the problem wasn't the flux, but the flux remover, which had some truly nasty compounds in it). For quite a while they didn't work so well causing insufficient wetting of the components resulting in failure of the solder joint. Once that was ironed out, then the RoHS with the lead-free solder requirement came in. This time the solder goes on fine, only to later develop "whiskers" which short out the devices.
Hey, Moonfruit, the sixties are over. If the planet was an organism it would have gone to the galactic doctor and got something to clear that nasty infection.
It has, but there's a wait for the procedure. About 65 million years.
I'm calling BS on this. If this were true then you could put two gps in a missile, each one with different limitations, and thus avoid the regulation. I don't think the US regulators are that stupid.
Two GPSs don't help you; the GP is right both about the restrictions and how they are usually implemented. Any civilian GPS is supposed to refuse to read if both the altitude exceeds 60,000 feet and the speed exceeds some other figure (I think 999kt, but I'm not sure).
The regulation IS stupid, as evidenced by the fact that it can be (and has been) hacked; any group with the know-how to build a ballistic missile could probably find someone able to hack a GPS as well.
Why is it an improvement? Can you not multiply anymore? Do watches not work? Do they tick at a different speed than 20 years ago? Do you even have anything resembling a valid reason for knowing your heart rate more than once ever minute?
The major improvement is you can measure heart rate while the activity is taking place.
My clutch went out on the highway and the mechanic told me that it was either the master cylinder or the slave cylinder, but they didn't have the diagnostic tools to verify which and they were getting the runaround from the manufacturer.
The mechanic is an idiot. There's no computer codes or special tools to determine if the problem is the master cylinder or the slave cylinder. It's literally a mechanical system; clutch linkage to the piston on the master cylinder, piston pushes fluid through the line to the slave cylinder, which has a piston which pushes the release fork. If the system was low on fluid when you brought it in (and it must have been, or filling and bleeding it without fixing the problem wouldn't have gotten it working temporarily), then the fluid leaked somewhere. Find the leak (using Mk I eyeball and other primitive tools) and you've figured out which one is the problem.
We own part of these companies now. Might as well salvage something out of this disaster and use our control.
Fine, Obama can order GM to release its codes by executive order. Leave Ford out of it. (I'm not sure what percentage of Chrysler the government owns; I was under the impression it was fairly small)
Of course, Ford should release their codes anyway and not be dicks about it.
Computers should have something similar, something that doesn't even try to explain whats wrong, that just says "something is wrong, you need to get your computer looked at by an expert" in language that even the dumbest user can understand.
Where are they going to find these experts? The closest thing in the real world is the Geek Squad, and professionals they are not.
That's not entirely true. There are lots of effects in movies used for cleanup... wire work removal, editing street signs, removing bystanders, etc. That most people wouldn't even know were originally on the film.
In _House of Sand and Fog_ they actually _added_ power lines to make the neighborhood look less upper-class and more middle-class. I noticed the lines before I heard this, they sure looked real.
Adding a one-armed man or an white Bronco to a dash-cam might be a bit more difficult though:-).
There are good reasons why terrestrial cellular operations aren't permitted at altitude. You obviously haven't done your homework.
There's at least plausible reasons for a lot of regulations. However, the reasons for not allowing cellular at altitude are, at the very least, overstated. There's tens of thousands of flights per day in the US; in a rather large number of them is a cell phone that someone has neglected to turn off. Yet the cell network has not crashed. One more from a balloon won't change anything.
It's great that they were able to use a cheap phone for this, but it's worth noting that many (probably most, in my experience) GPS receivers will NOT work properly above 60,000 feet.
That's because of US regulations, not for any real technical reason. Receivers have been hacked to remove the limitation, something probably well within the capabilities of MIT students.
Ironically, its the people who care very little about the environment that are using the arguments of those short sighted environmentalists to shoot down things like wind-power and hydroelectric generation concepts!
It's to be expected. Consider a conversation between a cigar-chomping flint-hearted power company executive and his favorite toady:
E: Smothers! What's the hold-up with the new coal plant? S: Well sir, some environmentalists say coal smoke causes acid rain and carbon dioxide ruins the climate E: Poppycock and nonsense.... but I suppose a hold-up is a hold-up. How do they expect us to make electricity if they're holding up our plant? S: Sir, they suggest we build alternative energy E: Alternative energy? What, I burn $100 bills? A man can't make an honest business nowadays... S: Sir, they think we should make hydroelectric, wind, and solar generation. E: Well, I suppose we can try it. Let me know how it goes, Smothers.
(later) S: Sir, I have the reports on our pilot hydroelectric, wind, and solar generation projects E: Good, good, let's hear the summary S: Well sir, our hydroelectric plant was stopped by environmentalists complaining it would flood sensitive wetlands habitat and stop migrating fish. E: Mmm... and the others S: The wind plant was shut down after environmentalists said our windmills chopped up birds E: Harumph, we should just put in a restaurant... ha, ha, get it Smothers? S: Yes sir, wind power and ground poultry, very funny sir. E: Well, solar? They couldn't have found anything wrong with solar, right Smothers? S: Actually, sir, they said just building the plant would disturb the desert environment and threaten many species of desert animal and plant. They said that bringing in the water we need would deplete the aquatic environment. And they said that as a whole, the plant would increase the albedo of the desert and result in damage to the climate E: WHAT? What do these people want us to do, sit around in the dark? S: Uhh, I don't know sir E: Call our lawyers! Call our lobbyists! I want that coal plant back on the fast track. That's the last time I'll pay any attention to any of that environmentalist nonsense. S: Yes sir.
Slashdot Mirror
A lot of the people on Facebook the MIT students predicted were gay were likely making no attempt to hide it and would have no objection to anyone knowing. Which makes the conclusion one big "so what?" A man who lists his favorite politician as Barney Frank, his favorite actress as Judy Garland, the city he would most like to live in as San Francisco, and who has among his friends the entire board of the campus gay and lesbian association is probably gay... but probably either doesn't care who knows or actually wants people to know.
The Magusson-Moss warranty act states otherwise. And the auto aftermarket was one of the reasons for the anti-tying provision.
That, and it's Microsoft. Everyone expects Microsoft to do the wrong thing.
Ahh, lead-free solder... is there any problem you can't cause. (Aside from lead poisoning, anyway)
Patent 5,822,523 has 6 claims. The first, second, and sixth claims are definitely covered by Netrek. Actually, the earlier XTrek covers them as well. Of course, with the way the stupid patent system works, even if claim 1 (the only essential claim) is completely forseen by the prior art, the trivial additions in claims 3,4, and 5 still stand. Though I think 4 and 5 are covered by Netrek as well.
Claim 3 is covers the case where you wait for all the clients to send at least one message before sending out the aggregated message. It's probably covered by some other equally old software.
Netrek, several years earlier, did.
Because it doesn't.
But the claims would be written so expansively that they'd cover the use of IRC for all sorts of things, including things IRC was used for long before your patent. And the jury wouldn't see the difference either.
This patent has no such limitation in the claims. It's a straightforward claim of stuff that has been done before.
You'd need a whole new way of keeping the head off the platter. You'd have a problem with lubricants vaporizing. Heat would be a problem as well.
They can't. There's a compulsory license. Once the song is out there, anyone can record it and sell recordings provided they pay the statutory royalty rate.
Distributing a DVD does not require performance royalties.
Right. The RoHS is just a figment of our imagination; electronics companies actually decided to use crappier, more expensive solder in order to promote planned obsolescence.
Seriously, we've been hit twice in the solder department. First it was water-based fluxes (the problem wasn't the flux, but the flux remover, which had some truly nasty compounds in it). For quite a while they didn't work so well causing insufficient wetting of the components resulting in failure of the solder joint. Once that was ironed out, then the RoHS with the lead-free solder requirement came in. This time the solder goes on fine, only to later develop "whiskers" which short out the devices.
...if my first thought was "Planck? That's an awfully small satellite."
It has, but there's a wait for the procedure. About 65 million years.
Two GPSs don't help you; the GP is right both about the restrictions and how they are usually implemented. Any civilian GPS is supposed to refuse to read if both the altitude exceeds 60,000 feet and the speed exceeds some other figure (I think 999kt, but I'm not sure).
The regulation IS stupid, as evidenced by the fact that it can be (and has been) hacked; any group with the know-how to build a ballistic missile could probably find someone able to hack a GPS as well.
The major improvement is you can measure heart rate while the activity is taking place.
True, it is the texture. But let's be honest here. It's not just the texture. It's the whole look of the application.
Look-n-feel copyright went down in flames in the Apple v. Microsoft case.
The mechanic is an idiot. There's no computer codes or special tools to determine if the problem is the master cylinder or the slave cylinder. It's literally a mechanical system; clutch linkage to the piston on the master cylinder, piston pushes fluid through the line to the slave cylinder, which has a piston which pushes the release fork. If the system was low on fluid when you brought it in (and it must have been, or filling and bleeding it without fixing the problem wouldn't have gotten it working temporarily), then the fluid leaked somewhere. Find the leak (using Mk I eyeball and other primitive tools) and you've figured out which one is the problem.
Fine, Obama can order GM to release its codes by executive order. Leave Ford out of it. (I'm not sure what percentage of Chrysler the government owns; I was under the impression it was fairly small)
Of course, Ford should release their codes anyway and not be dicks about it.
Where are they going to find these experts? The closest thing in the real world is the Geek Squad, and professionals they are not.
...to redirect all requests to yes.thepiratebay.org in 3...2...1..
Slightly off topic, but have you ever worked with politicians, record producers, lawyers, lobbyists, or pimps? Just trying to calibrate, you see...
In _House of Sand and Fog_ they actually _added_ power lines to make the neighborhood look less upper-class and more middle-class. I noticed the lines before I heard this, they sure looked real.
Adding a one-armed man or an white Bronco to a dash-cam might be a bit more difficult though :-).
There's at least plausible reasons for a lot of regulations. However, the reasons for not allowing cellular at altitude are, at the very least, overstated. There's tens of thousands of flights per day in the US; in a rather large number of them is a cell phone that someone has neglected to turn off. Yet the cell network has not crashed. One more from a balloon won't change anything.
If everyone actually followed all the regulations we have nowadays, no one smaller than Boeing would ever get anything done.
That's because of US regulations, not for any real technical reason. Receivers have been hacked to remove the limitation, something probably well within the capabilities of MIT students.
It's to be expected. Consider a conversation between a cigar-chomping flint-hearted power company executive and his favorite toady:
E: Smothers! What's the hold-up with the new coal plant?
S: Well sir, some environmentalists say coal smoke causes acid rain and carbon dioxide ruins the climate
E: Poppycock and nonsense.... but I suppose a hold-up is a hold-up. How do they expect us to make electricity if they're holding up our plant?
S: Sir, they suggest we build alternative energy
E: Alternative energy? What, I burn $100 bills? A man can't make an honest business nowadays...
S: Sir, they think we should make hydroelectric, wind, and solar generation.
E: Well, I suppose we can try it. Let me know how it goes, Smothers.
(later)
S: Sir, I have the reports on our pilot hydroelectric, wind, and solar generation projects
E: Good, good, let's hear the summary
S: Well sir, our hydroelectric plant was stopped by environmentalists complaining it would flood sensitive wetlands habitat and stop migrating fish.
E: Mmm... and the others
S: The wind plant was shut down after environmentalists said our windmills chopped up birds
E: Harumph, we should just put in a restaurant... ha, ha, get it Smothers?
S: Yes sir, wind power and ground poultry, very funny sir.
E: Well, solar? They couldn't have found anything wrong with solar, right Smothers?
S: Actually, sir, they said just building the plant would disturb the desert environment and threaten many species of desert animal and plant. They said that bringing in the water we need would deplete the aquatic environment. And they said that as a whole, the plant would increase the albedo of the desert and result in damage to the climate
E: WHAT? What do these people want us to do, sit around in the dark?
S: Uhh, I don't know sir
E: Call our lawyers! Call our lobbyists! I want that coal plant back on the fast track. That's the last time I'll pay any attention to any of that environmentalist nonsense.
S: Yes sir.