The First Amendment is the First Amendment regardless of the content of the speech. If a law means that a contract Party A makes to not reveal something that Party B tells him is binding on Party C, it's violating the First Amendment regardless of whether it's about dumping toxic chemicals or about the next new iPod.
One California court did find the UTSA unconstitutional (in one of the DVD cases), but the California Supreme Court cleverly reinstated it while letting the defendant off the hook, precluding appeals.
The use tax, because it is charged only on items purchased out-of-state, is a tax on interstate commerce and is therefore unconstitutional. And I'll be screaming that as I'm dragged away to State pound-me-in-the-ass-prison.
ROTFL. Asimov's writing was more than a bit stilted also, but spare. I believe the line you've quoted is a deliberate exaggeration of some of Asimovs character introductions (e.g. in _The Caves of Steel_)
Architectural works are copyrightable, but that copyright does NOT extend to preventing photography containing (or even depicting) the architectural work. See 17 USC 120.
"The copyright in an architectural work that has been constructed does not include the right to prevent the making, distributing, or public display of pictures, paintings, photographs, or other pictorial representations of the work, if the building in which the work is embodied is located in or ordinarily visible from a public place."
However, the work in question is a sculpture and not an architectural work, so this exception does not apply.
This study means that (assuming I'm a smart person, anyway) my apathetic, don't-give-a-shit "bad attitude" is actually an advantage. If I don't give a shit, I'm not pressured and therefore have more room in my working memory for task-related information, and I therefore do better.
So boss, don't take it personally when I appear to not care about the task at hand. It's not because I realize there's no reward in it for me if I do well, nor because in the back of my mind part of me would like to see the commissioned sales staff humiliated at the demo. It's because by not giving a shit, I'll do a better job. Really. It's absolutely true, or my name isn't David Leisure.
While a common technique, "argument by comparing your opponent to a child" really isn't particularly rigorous.
And complaining about those who object to calling infringment "stealing" twisting words is getting it entirely backwards. It's those who call infringement "stealing" who are trying to sidestep the entire question about what, if anything, is being done wrong.
If you want to say that copyright infringment is immoral behavior, you have to make that argument. Not declare the case closed by calling it "stealing" and ridiculing anyone who objects to the metaphor.
Why 30? 10 digits plus 26 letters. Subtract 0,O,Q,l,i,1 because they're too easy to visually confuse. Though the example Microsoft gives instead removes 'l' and the vowels.
It may or may not have been non-obvious at one point, but it's certainly not novel. The idea of converting numbers to a higher base to obtain compact text representations of them has been around for a _long_ time. Base-64 encoding uses it, for instance. You know those really hard to type license keys with letters and numbers? Those often use it. Using it for latitude and longitude is just an obvious application of an existing technique.
I've spilled just-off-boiling water on myself often enough to know that the fear engendered by the American Trial Lawyers Association is overblown. The "burns in 2 seconds" is based on contact with 180 degree water that _remains at 180_; spilled coffee will not.
The elephant in the refrigerator that everyone concerned ignores is that some people are more sensitive to burns than others, and the elderly are among the most sensitive. Also that (obviously) some parts of the body are more sensitive than others.
There's actually nothing in the US statutes about contributory and vicarious infringement (which are separate concepts). They were invented by the courts in order to help out Jack Valenti and company.
But this case was in Norway, so that's not really relevant.
That Mythbusters page comes direct from a "fact sheet" prepared by the American Trial Lawyers Association.
"Fact" #2 is obviously false. (while immersing your skin in a large tank of 180 degree coffee might do it, merely spilling it on yourself would not)
"Fact" #6 is misleading. They had 700 _complaints_ about burns.... in several billion cups of coffee sold.
The whole purpose of the "fact sheet" is to try to make something people are very familiar with -- a few ounces of impure water -- into something mysteeerious (waves fingers) and scary. But when it comes down to it, people deal with similar amounts of even hotter impure water all the time, without routinely getting third degree burns from it.
Right. If the patent simply covers making a map of IP addresses, there's prior art. If it covers the specific case of making a map of IP addresses based on firewall hits, it's not novel; it's an obvious application of existing technology.
No doubt something like: "World to End unless specific remedies are taken! Everyone must do exactly as we, the report authors say, and give us lots of money too, or the seas will boil!"
I mean, come on. The climate is a chaotic system for which we've only got the barest inkling of the initial conditions, and very limited understanding of a few of the many feedback cycles embedded in it. Certainly not enough to undertake whatever austerity measures the report will recommend.
There's a lot of verbiage in this brief, but what it comes down to is the VSDA is asking the court to overturn Betamax and rule for MGM, just in a way that doesn't hurt the VSDAs interests. That's a bad thing. There's no good that can come of this decision, only a lack of harm -- which is that Betamax is upheld and Grokster wins.
The VSDA can probably see which way the wind's blowing and is trying to limit the damage to them.
Or _A_ reason, anyway, is that the customer insists on not changing their business processes AT ALL. The new software has to do everything the old system did, in the same way. And often this just doesn't make sense; either the very reason the customer wants new software argues for a different model, or other considerations argue for a different model. But the customer dangles the money in front of sales, sales promises, management dictates, the programmers write -- and what you end up with is a system which is extremely clunky and inefficient because it's basically simulating the old system (which wasn't good enough in the first place).
With COTS, the customer doesn't have that option so they are forced to give a little. Of course the danger THERE is that the COTS software simply can't support what they want to do.
This case is what Jack Valenti and his minions and successor have been waiting for for decades... a case where the Supreme Court must either rule for a highly unsympathetic and shady defendant, or overturn Betamax.
They won't overturn the entire thing. They probably won't even explicitly say they're overturning it. But what will happen is the "substantial noninfringing use" test will be modified, changed to "primarily noninfringing uses" or whatever else it takes to get a rule which excludes Grokster from protection. And as a result the Betamax decision will be worthless as a defense against infringement claims against technology makers. The new test will be too weak and too subject to interpretation in favor of the MPAA to do so.
The part about time-shifting being non-infringing will remain, so the VCR itself will remain on the shelves (thus preventing any real outcry), but the future belongs to the MPAA.
Nein. Merely including a header file doesn't necessarily include any code at all. Particularly in C (as opposed to C++, which is more likely to have inline functions). Nor does linking to a shared library -- the code is referenced, not included in the binary. Nor is the _source code_ at all derivative as a result of linking or header file inclusion, regardless of what's in the header file or the type of linking.
Drives have been getting bigger and bigger for years, it's backup media which has lagged. How about some solution to that? Like portable and reliable backup media which doesn't cost an arm and a leg, is big enough that you don't get tendonitis from switching the media out, and is fast enough that you are actually willing to do the backups.
Good safes tend to "fail secure" -- that is, when something goes wrong, you can't get into it even with the right combination. The only reason this is acceptable is there's still ways into the safe without damaging the contents. They're expensive (hardened drill bits ain't cheap!), require esoteric tools and knowledge, and hopefully take a lot of time and make a lot of noise, which a cracker doesn't want to do.
Encryption, if it fails for some reason, is as hard to break for the legitimate user as it is for the cracker. Fortunately, it doesn't fail that often --- except for good old human factors, like the guy with the key forget it, lost it, or dropped dead.
Because the "into synch" stuff is a game, a scam, a flim-flam, a cheat. The way it works is some player works hard on one country or another to get a law favorable to them. Then they use the "into synch" reasoning to get other countries go along. Then they get a small change in another country, and propagate THAT one using the same reasoning. Repeat ad nauseum, until every country gets the worst of all possible systems despite each individual country doing _almost_ nothing except getting "in synch" with all the others.
Slashdot Mirror
The First Amendment is the First Amendment regardless of the content of the speech. If a law means that a contract Party A makes to not reveal something that Party B tells him is binding on Party C, it's violating the First Amendment regardless of whether it's about dumping toxic chemicals or about the next new iPod.
One California court did find the UTSA unconstitutional (in one of the DVD cases), but the California Supreme Court cleverly reinstated it while letting the defendant off the hook, precluding appeals.
The use tax, because it is charged only on items purchased out-of-state, is a tax on interstate commerce and is therefore unconstitutional. And I'll be screaming that as I'm dragged away to State pound-me-in-the-ass-prison.
...then what we need is video games that train people to kill LAWYERS.
Slashdot's bad-posting guilt-by-subnet-association sucks.
Like Omni Consumer Products. OCP never let bad publicity -- or anything else -- stand in the way of implementation of a bad idea.
P.S. Slashdot bad-posting guilt-by-subnet-association sucks.
ROTFL. Asimov's writing was more than a bit stilted also, but spare. I believe the line you've quoted is a deliberate exaggeration of some of Asimovs character introductions (e.g. in _The Caves of Steel_)
Architectural works are copyrightable, but that copyright does NOT extend to preventing photography containing (or even depicting) the architectural work. See 17 USC 120.
"The copyright in an architectural work that has been constructed does not include the right to prevent the making, distributing, or public display of pictures, paintings, photographs, or other pictorial representations of the work, if the building in which the work is embodied is located in or ordinarily visible from a public place."
However, the work in question is a sculpture and not an architectural work, so this exception does not apply.
This study means that (assuming I'm a smart person, anyway) my apathetic, don't-give-a-shit "bad attitude" is actually an advantage. If I don't give a shit, I'm not pressured and therefore have more room in my working memory for task-related information, and I therefore do better.
So boss, don't take it personally when I appear to not care about the task at hand. It's not because I realize there's no reward in it for me if I do well, nor because in the back of my mind part of me would like to see the commissioned sales staff humiliated at the demo. It's because by not giving a shit, I'll do a better job. Really. It's absolutely true, or my name isn't David Leisure.
While a common technique, "argument by comparing your opponent to a child" really isn't particularly rigorous.
And complaining about those who object to calling infringment "stealing" twisting words is getting it entirely backwards. It's those who call infringement "stealing" who are trying to sidestep the entire question about what, if anything, is being done wrong.
If you want to say that copyright infringment is immoral behavior, you have to make that argument. Not declare the case closed by calling it "stealing" and ridiculing anyone who objects to the metaphor.
Why 30? 10 digits plus 26 letters. Subtract 0,O,Q,l,i,1 because they're too easy to visually confuse. Though the example Microsoft gives instead removes 'l' and the vowels.
It may or may not have been non-obvious at one point, but it's certainly not novel. The idea of converting numbers to a higher base to obtain compact text representations of them has been around for a _long_ time. Base-64 encoding uses it, for instance. You know those really hard to type license keys with letters and numbers? Those often use it. Using it for latitude and longitude is just an obvious application of an existing technique.
Of the 150,000 - 300,000 software patents
45,000 - 90,000 are estimated to be duplicates of other patents
30,000 - 60,000 consist of a commonly-used manual technique implemented "using a device consisting of a CPU, a monitor, and an operating system"
20,000 - 40,000 of those include an additional claim of "The device in claim 1, where the operating system is a version of Microsoft Windows"
25,000 - 50,000 consist of a common technique now done "on the Internet".
25,000 - 50,000 consist of techniques invented and published decades ago by E.W. Dijkstra, Donald Knuth, or Claude Shannon.
10,000 - 20,000 are written in such obscure and/or nonstandard language that it's impossible to figure out exactly what they cover
14,999 - 29,999 are "submarine" patents not made public until long after the invention was in wide use.
The last one is the RSA patent, and it's expired.
I've spilled just-off-boiling water on myself often enough to know that the fear engendered by the American Trial Lawyers Association is overblown. The "burns in 2 seconds" is based on contact with 180 degree water that _remains at 180_; spilled coffee will not.
The elephant in the refrigerator that everyone concerned ignores is that some people are more sensitive to burns than others, and the elderly are among the most sensitive. Also that (obviously) some parts of the body are more sensitive than others.
Soldier of Fortune won both Braun and Eimann. They lost Eimann at the district level, but won it on appeal.
There's actually nothing in the US statutes about contributory and vicarious infringement (which are separate concepts). They were invented by the courts in order to help out Jack Valenti and company.
But this case was in Norway, so that's not really relevant.
That Mythbusters page comes direct from a "fact sheet" prepared by the American Trial Lawyers Association.
"Fact" #2 is obviously false. (while immersing your skin in a large tank of 180 degree coffee might do it, merely spilling it on yourself would not)
"Fact" #6 is misleading. They had 700 _complaints_ about burns.... in several billion cups of coffee sold.
The whole purpose of the "fact sheet" is to try to make something people are very familiar with -- a few ounces of impure water -- into something mysteeerious (waves fingers) and scary. But when it comes down to it, people deal with similar amounts of even hotter impure water all the time, without routinely getting third degree burns from it.
Right. If the patent simply covers making a map of IP addresses, there's prior art. If it covers the specific case of making a map of IP addresses based on firewall hits, it's not novel; it's an obvious application of existing technology.
No doubt something like: "World to End unless specific remedies are taken! Everyone must do exactly as we, the report authors say, and give us lots of money too, or the seas will boil!" I mean, come on. The climate is a chaotic system for which we've only got the barest inkling of the initial conditions, and very limited understanding of a few of the many feedback cycles embedded in it. Certainly not enough to undertake whatever austerity measures the report will recommend.
There's a lot of verbiage in this brief, but what it comes down to is the VSDA is asking the court to overturn Betamax and rule for MGM, just in a way that doesn't hurt the VSDAs interests. That's a bad thing. There's no good that can come of this decision, only a lack of harm -- which is that Betamax is upheld and Grokster wins.
The VSDA can probably see which way the wind's blowing and is trying to limit the damage to them.
Or _A_ reason, anyway, is that the customer insists on not changing their business processes AT ALL. The new software has to do everything the old system did, in the same way. And often this just doesn't make sense; either the very reason the customer wants new software argues for a different model, or other considerations argue for a different model. But the customer dangles the money in front of sales, sales promises, management dictates, the programmers write -- and what you end up with is a system which is extremely clunky and inefficient because it's basically simulating the old system (which wasn't good enough in the first place).
With COTS, the customer doesn't have that option so they are forced to give a little. Of course the danger THERE is that the COTS software simply can't support what they want to do.
This case is what Jack Valenti and his minions and successor have been waiting for for decades... a case where the Supreme Court must either rule for a highly unsympathetic and shady defendant, or overturn Betamax.
They won't overturn the entire thing. They probably won't even explicitly say they're overturning it. But what will happen is the "substantial noninfringing use" test will be modified, changed to "primarily noninfringing uses" or whatever else it takes to get a rule which excludes Grokster from protection. And as a result the Betamax decision will be worthless as a defense against infringement claims against technology makers. The new test will be too weak and too subject to interpretation in favor of the MPAA to do so.
The part about time-shifting being non-infringing will remain, so the VCR itself will remain on the shelves (thus preventing any real outcry), but the future belongs to the MPAA.
Nein. Merely including a header file doesn't necessarily include any code at all. Particularly in C (as opposed to C++, which is more likely to have inline functions). Nor does linking to a shared library -- the code is referenced, not included in the binary. Nor is the _source code_ at all derivative as a result of linking or header file inclusion, regardless of what's in the header file or the type of linking.
Step 1: cp -R kernel.orig kernel.infringement-free
Step 2: There is no step 2. Alas, there is also no Step 3: Profit.
Drives have been getting bigger and bigger for years, it's backup media which has lagged. How about some solution to that? Like portable and reliable backup media which doesn't cost an arm and a leg, is big enough that you don't get tendonitis from switching the media out, and is fast enough that you are actually willing to do the backups.
Good safes tend to "fail secure" -- that is, when something goes wrong, you can't get into it even with the right combination. The only reason this is acceptable is there's still ways into the safe without damaging the contents. They're expensive (hardened drill bits ain't cheap!), require esoteric tools and knowledge, and hopefully take a lot of time and make a lot of noise, which a cracker doesn't want to do. Encryption, if it fails for some reason, is as hard to break for the legitimate user as it is for the cracker. Fortunately, it doesn't fail that often --- except for good old human factors, like the guy with the key forget it, lost it, or dropped dead.
Because the "into synch" stuff is a game, a scam, a flim-flam, a cheat. The way it works is some player works hard on one country or another to get a law favorable to them. Then they use the "into synch" reasoning to get other countries go along. Then they get a small change in another country, and propagate THAT one using the same reasoning. Repeat ad nauseum, until every country gets the worst of all possible systems despite each individual country doing _almost_ nothing except getting "in synch" with all the others.