From the "cease and desist" letter from SCC:
Specific examples of our use of this trademark go back to 1996
Ok, but the first issue on LinuxGazette.net is
July 1995, so is this claim of precedence bogus or am I missing something big here with respect to the history of this dispute?
As a scientist myself (albeit a computer scientist) I certainly do get credit for what I do, even what I do that I allow the world to use (by, for example, publishing an algorithm). Of course, publishing is part of my job and so I don't need to hoard my innovations in order to make money from them. It would be rather different if I worked for a company -- but even in the business world there are companies that see the value in publishing their techniques in order to advance science.
Hoarding key biotech techniques gives a few companies control over what's done with them, which is potentially extremely problematic. It also promotes keeping the basic techniques quiet until they've been able to exploit them for what they want to do, since the technique is not the end goal of their work.
If I have discovered how to fish, do I fish on my own in secret and sell fish, or allow others to observe (or teach them)? Someone could even improve on my methods.
No problem with 3 or 4 booths, sure. But what is being talked about sounds like at least 25 different things to vote on. That's a bit much, and would tend to discourage people from voting even if they found enough people to count them.
I find I rather like asynchronous elections, especially in the ways that opinions can be reflected in different levels of government at different times (and at different times in different places).
I'm sure that at least some non-tech-savvy election officials are content with the Diebold machines on the basis that "at least they won't have dimpled chads," or something similar.
Perhaps they're more interested in the smoothness of the election than in its accuracy. If there are no error messages they can assume it's working properly, right? And it's so much easier if there isn't a paper backup: no ballots = no recount.
why isn't pencil and paper good enough in the United States?
Two words: synchronous elections.
In Canada we elect different levels of government at different times; we also don't have as many elected positions. So the most different ballots that might have to be counted at once are for municipal elections, where you might vote for mayor, a couple of councillors, and some school board members. Contrast this to voting for President, US Senator, US Congress, State Senator, State Congress, various municipal positions potentially including a local judge and sheriff and other local officials in addition to the
usual mayor + councillor + school board, *and* various referenda. All to be counted at once. We, on the other hand, have asynchronous elections, and probably reuse the same counting volunteers a lot. Plus we have more positions that are appointed rather than elected, and very few referenda.
Basically they have a lot more counting that has to be done at once, and as usual repetition leads to attempts at automation. Too many elections to scale well, rather than too many people.
Scantron sheets for voting? That's NOT a good idea. I'm currently working for a company that deals with standardized tests, and those things are a PAIN to clean up in the database becaues NOBODY can fill the damn things out correctly.
Ok, then how about a simple machine that you input votes into and prints out correctly filled in ballot forms? You can check it visually to make sure it's what you want (print the questions/answers/names on it), and then it'll scan properly.
It'd be tempting just to count the votes on the same machine, but being able to verify the sheet in between the two parts is better for security and rechecking (would also achieve higher confidence of voters, and can even help them make sure they know who they're voting for).
Keep in mind folks, that he's the one that brought us Alien:Resurrection and Titan A.E.
"The one that brought us"? Well, no, more like one of the people that worked on the scripts for these movies (so you can think him responsible for whichever parts you most liked or disliked, as you prefer). For the most part, interest in "Buffy" led to some script doctor work for Whedon. However, as with the difference between the original Buffy movie and the series (and differences between ok/good and excellent episodes of Buffy), Whedon's work is much better when nobody else messes with it.
I just hope that the powers at Universal are smart enough not to tamper with things on the Firefly movie. Probably not much of a hope, but it's worth a try.
The first general answer is that "it depends" -- on the type of job, mostly, and whether research ability is an asset for it. There are the usual overqualification dangers, in that they may think you're unlikely to be happy and stay there. That's standard.
The biggest problem may simply be that while you're getting the advanced degree, you're likely not getting some work experience that they would find valuable, and your past work experience is slipping further into the past. There are ways to mitigate this by continuing to work while studying -- there are even some co-op grad programs.
It's also harder to get a job with a Ph.D. becuase there are fewer such jobs, and the background needed is usually very specific. And going after a job outside of your area of specialization leads back to the first problem, the impression that you're really interested in something else (and you don't fit into their classifications).
Thus, we do know that the "junk" is truly junk. The debate on its usefulness centers around the other physical implications of the existance of such DNA, and where it might have come from, but "computationally" (in biological terms "is it ever used to produce a protein?") it is indeed junk.
Ah, ok. So you're equating "not being used to code for a protein" with "junk". Unfortunately then we don't know if it's all truly "junk", since you're completely leaving out the potential for any of it playing a role in gene regulation (which is complex, and certainly not fully "mapped out"). Just because it doesn't apear to code for a known protein (and many hypothesized genes have not yet been matched to known proteins) doesn't mean it isn't being used somehow.
And, for the most part, we haven't removed it and proven that the "program" never crashes (and "never" needs to include its evolutionary uses), and we certainly haven't been able to trace every possible route through the code.
Too many are falling for the straw man in the article -- they juxtapose problems with cursive and with writing in general, but only very tenuously link the two (and in the other direction -- kids don't write regularly, so they don't have the right muscles developed to learn cursive well).
Being able to write is important. Being able to write pretty according to an old standard that is hardly ever used in practice (currently) is not.
Maybe if they taught what they call "Italics" (presumably the same evolved joined printing that many people develop over time) little Johnny *would* be able to write well. Instead they emphasize "perfect" cursive that is an artificially high goal, and kids end up not writing legibly at all.
If a particular writing style is generally used, and can be very legible, why not teach it instead of forcing the tight, pretty (but not easy, innately legible, or comfortable) traditional style?
One of the tunes was "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head".
Also "Summertime (... and the Livin' is Easy)".
Somehow wheneve there was any probability of rain,
my stand always got rained out. Left me with a lifelong suspicion of threatening clouds. And also
of random number generators.
Sure, post your QBasic version. It'd be good to reminisce.
2. I'm rather indifferent to the genealogical links between these characters and Cryptonomicon's. I mean, the characters in Cryptonomicon were pretty good, but it's not as if they were so fabulously conceived that I said "Goddamn, I wish I could read an entire cycle of books about their ancestors!" But Stephenson obviously has affection for them, so whatever helps him write is okay by me.
There's more potential links to Cryptonomicon than just the genealogical ones. Leibniz links to Rudy's obsession with the Leibniz-Archiv, and we should get more about Societas Eruditorium.
I'm definitely with you on the "if Stephenson wants to write it, fine" reasoning too, though there is more backstory that I'm interested in as well.
As for subdividing into volumes, I hope there's good creative reasons behind it rather than a
publishing stunt to get us to pay more.
Re:Got a whole lotta hype
on
Brain Privacy
·
· Score: 1
If you assault someone without hating them for their race, you get the standard punishment. But if you do the exact same assault and feel hatred, you get an additional punishment.
As I see it, the logic behind additional or more severe punishments for hate crimes is that not only would you be assaulting someone, you'd also be deliberately terrorizing their minority group.
I think there is a great parallel here in the pharmaceutical industry. After all, we all know that drug companies don't fight for extended patent rights to drugs that improve peoples lives. They are always real nice about making their "threshold" amount then releasing their drug(s) to generic and whole-saler manufacturers so that the majority of the people can benefit.
Nice sarcasm, btw. But the parallel is not that good, since for software there is an ability to choose that you don't have with drugs. The source escrow is intended to influence the choice -- so if you need to buy a word processing program, you would be more likely to pick the version whose source is in escrow (with a reasonable threshold). For most drugs there are no or very few alternatives due to the patent process. It's as if the idea of a word processor was patented, and you have no choice about which one to get. Though you never know what will happen, given the US Patent Office...
Requiering that source be disclosed after a profit threshold is reached won't work since a company could cheat by setting the threshold redicoulously high.
They could -- but the potential customers would know that the threshold had been set ridiculously high, and would be far less likely to buy in. This proposal is effectively a promise, which they could not break due to the escrow, that if enough copies are sold, they will make the source available; this encourages companies and governments to buy it as they will not have to worry about losing access to it later. Though it's based on profit, not number of copies -- it would be interesting to see how they plan to stop companies from hiding the profits of product X (whose source is in escrow) as something else.
The discussion in the article about the company having the ability to keep future improvements closed indicates that this is not a GPL-style OS.
But we should judge the proposal on its own merits, not just on its resemblance to our preferred model.
What is really needed for something like this is an advanced version of the Personalized Suggestions that amazon and others use now. I bet the community could come up with a pretty complicated and very neat algorithm such that when I rated the books that I do and do not like it really would give me recomendations for books I would also like.
Sounds like what you need is the
Recommender (otherwise known as Hypatia) at AlexLit.
I used to use it a lot, and though it suffered
a bit in its infancy from the opinions of the
natural first users, it's grown.
Though AlexLit has branched out into selling
eBooks, the recommender includes any book that
someone has decided to add. It's been around for
years.
"The problem with anecdotal evidence...." In my experience individuals live life as a series anecdotal events. Aggregating data is great, but kids get stuffed into lockers one at a time.
That depends on how big the lockers are, and how small the kids are.
2) The reason it's hard to be smart AND popular is that being popular takes up mental bandwidth that most smart people would rather use "making great things" (rockets and computers are used as examples). "Few smart kids can spare the attention that popularity requires."
I found this point interesting, but still somewhat lacking. Certainly popularity can take a lot of
work, especially since a lot of it involves conformity -- doing and saying all the "in" things,
keeping up with the trends, always being aware
of how you appear to others. But I think
there's a bit more to it than that. If
you think differently, it's a lot more work to
conform, since conformity means turning off your
natural ideas and just following the trends rather than your own reactions.
It's amazing how much effort it takes not to
think, or at least to react as though you don't
have a mind of your own.
Geeks/nerds are not really outside this. Even among fellow geeks I can be an outcast due to not caring any more about what tech toys or games
are "in" now (yet here I am on slashdot, go figure) than I did about what clothes and music were "in" when I was in junior high.
I discovered quite early that I was too far out
of the loop to even credibly fake interest in the trends of the moment, and that was that.
I do agree with the author's point that kids
might not be as involved with popularity if
they had something else to do. Though given how
much he blamed it on life in the suburbs, I half expected him to start quoting Rush.
The facts are that most people just don't understand linux, and can't tell the difference between honest differences of opinion and outright FUD about Linux.
The facts are that some people just don't understand a parody, and can't tell the
difference between a joke and FUD.
So, looking at the picture, you'll notice the clone (cc) has only two colors indicating that it is not only a clone of the donor cat, but a 100% exact genetic clone of ONE cell of the donor cat. The other X chromosome is completely inactive.
So what does this mean about the consequences of cloning for X-chromosome genetic disorders? Sounds ominous to me.
I hate spam almost as much as anyone, but spamming ads for anti-spam software at least looks like a decent marketing ploy; if you get the ad, you probably need the software, as long as they don't break their software to let their own ads through.
It does rather resemble a protection racket, though.
You can read the EULA until you've agreed to it. After that, no. So if you agree to it, you can't look at it again to see if they've changed it (which the EULA says they have the right to do at any time), and must agree in ignorance to whatever unknown things they say in the future.
Technically reading is not a "manual" process, since it does not involve hands. Copying it down while reading it (in order to check the new copy against the original that you agreed to,
or take it to your lawyer) would be.
I don't think many US folks have heard of this one yet since its on so late. (sunday 11:30 PM UPN here..) Currently in
US syndication is this british show starhunter. [starhuntertv.com]
British show? Like so many other SF shows, it's
filmed in Canada (though on the other coast
from many of the others, so it's closer to the UK
than it is to Vancouver).
Slashdot Mirror
Specific examples of our use of this trademark go back to 1996
Ok, but the first issue on LinuxGazette.net is July 1995, so is this claim of precedence bogus or am I missing something big here with respect to the history of this dispute?
Hoarding key biotech techniques gives a few companies control over what's done with them, which is potentially extremely problematic. It also promotes keeping the basic techniques quiet until they've been able to exploit them for what they want to do, since the technique is not the end goal of their work.
If I have discovered how to fish, do I fish on my own in secret and sell fish, or allow others to observe (or teach them)? Someone could even improve on my methods.
No problem with 3 or 4 booths, sure. But what is being talked about sounds like at least 25 different things to vote on. That's a bit much, and would tend to discourage people from voting even if they found enough people to count them. I find I rather like asynchronous elections, especially in the ways that opinions can be reflected in different levels of government at different times (and at different times in different places).
Perhaps they're more interested in the smoothness of the election than in its accuracy. If there are no error messages they can assume it's working properly, right? And it's so much easier if there isn't a paper backup: no ballots = no recount.
Two words: synchronous elections.
In Canada we elect different levels of government at different times; we also don't have as many elected positions. So the most different ballots that might have to be counted at once are for municipal elections, where you might vote for mayor, a couple of councillors, and some school board members. Contrast this to voting for President, US Senator, US Congress, State Senator, State Congress, various municipal positions potentially including a local judge and sheriff and other local officials in addition to the usual mayor + councillor + school board, *and* various referenda. All to be counted at once. We, on the other hand, have asynchronous elections, and probably reuse the same counting volunteers a lot. Plus we have more positions that are appointed rather than elected, and very few referenda.
Basically they have a lot more counting that has to be done at once, and as usual repetition leads to attempts at automation. Too many elections to scale well, rather than too many people.
Ok, then how about a simple machine that you input votes into and prints out correctly filled in ballot forms? You can check it visually to make sure it's what you want (print the questions/answers/names on it), and then it'll scan properly.
It'd be tempting just to count the votes on the same machine, but being able to verify the sheet in between the two parts is better for security and rechecking (would also achieve higher confidence of voters, and can even help them make sure they know who they're voting for).
"The one that brought us"? Well, no, more like one of the people that worked on the scripts for these movies (so you can think him responsible for whichever parts you most liked or disliked, as you prefer). For the most part, interest in "Buffy" led to some script doctor work for Whedon. However, as with the difference between the original Buffy movie and the series (and differences between ok/good and excellent episodes of Buffy), Whedon's work is much better when nobody else messes with it.
I just hope that the powers at Universal are smart enough not to tamper with things on the Firefly movie. Probably not much of a hope, but it's worth a try.
The biggest problem may simply be that while you're getting the advanced degree, you're likely not getting some work experience that they would find valuable, and your past work experience is slipping further into the past. There are ways to mitigate this by continuing to work while studying -- there are even some co-op grad programs.
It's also harder to get a job with a Ph.D. becuase there are fewer such jobs, and the background needed is usually very specific. And going after a job outside of your area of specialization leads back to the first problem, the impression that you're really interested in something else (and you don't fit into their classifications).
Do you want fries with that FUD?
Ah, ok. So you're equating "not being used to code for a protein" with "junk". Unfortunately then we don't know if it's all truly "junk", since you're completely leaving out the potential for any of it playing a role in gene regulation (which is complex, and certainly not fully "mapped out"). Just because it doesn't apear to code for a known protein (and many hypothesized genes have not yet been matched to known proteins) doesn't mean it isn't being used somehow.
And, for the most part, we haven't removed it and proven that the "program" never crashes (and "never" needs to include its evolutionary uses), and we certainly haven't been able to trace every possible route through the code.
Too many are falling for the straw man in the article -- they juxtapose problems with cursive and with writing in general, but only very tenuously link the two (and in the other direction -- kids don't write regularly, so they don't have the right muscles developed to learn cursive well).
Being able to write is important. Being able to write pretty according to an old standard that is hardly ever used in practice (currently) is not.
Maybe if they taught what they call "Italics" (presumably the same evolved joined printing that many people develop over time) little Johnny *would* be able to write well. Instead they emphasize "perfect" cursive that is an artificially high goal, and kids end up not writing legibly at all.
If a particular writing style is generally used, and can be very legible, why not teach it instead of forcing the tight, pretty (but not easy, innately legible, or comfortable) traditional style?
Also "Summertime (... and the Livin' is Easy)".
Somehow wheneve there was any probability of rain, my stand always got rained out. Left me with a lifelong suspicion of threatening clouds. And also of random number generators.
Sure, post your QBasic version. It'd be good to reminisce.
There's more potential links to Cryptonomicon than just the genealogical ones. Leibniz links to Rudy's obsession with the Leibniz-Archiv, and we should get more about Societas Eruditorium. I'm definitely with you on the "if Stephenson wants to write it, fine" reasoning too, though there is more backstory that I'm interested in as well.
As for subdividing into volumes, I hope there's good creative reasons behind it rather than a publishing stunt to get us to pay more.
As I see it, the logic behind additional or more severe punishments for hate crimes is that not only would you be assaulting someone, you'd also be deliberately terrorizing their minority group.
Nice sarcasm, btw. But the parallel is not that good, since for software there is an ability to choose that you don't have with drugs. The source escrow is intended to influence the choice -- so if you need to buy a word processing program, you would be more likely to pick the version whose source is in escrow (with a reasonable threshold). For most drugs there are no or very few alternatives due to the patent process. It's as if the idea of a word processor was patented, and you have no choice about which one to get. Though you never know what will happen, given the US Patent Office...
They could -- but the potential customers would know that the threshold had been set ridiculously high, and would be far less likely to buy in. This proposal is effectively a promise, which they could not break due to the escrow, that if enough copies are sold, they will make the source available; this encourages companies and governments to buy it as they will not have to worry about losing access to it later. Though it's based on profit, not number of copies -- it would be interesting to see how they plan to stop companies from hiding the profits of product X (whose source is in escrow) as something else.
The discussion in the article about the company having the ability to keep future improvements closed indicates that this is not a GPL-style OS. But we should judge the proposal on its own merits, not just on its resemblance to our preferred model.
Sounds like what you need is the Recommender (otherwise known as Hypatia) at AlexLit. I used to use it a lot, and though it suffered a bit in its infancy from the opinions of the natural first users, it's grown. Though AlexLit has branched out into selling eBooks, the recommender includes any book that someone has decided to add. It's been around for years.
That depends on how big the lockers are, and how small the kids are.
I found this point interesting, but still somewhat lacking. Certainly popularity can take a lot of work, especially since a lot of it involves conformity -- doing and saying all the "in" things, keeping up with the trends, always being aware of how you appear to others. But I think there's a bit more to it than that. If you think differently, it's a lot more work to conform, since conformity means turning off your natural ideas and just following the trends rather than your own reactions. It's amazing how much effort it takes not to think, or at least to react as though you don't have a mind of your own.
Geeks/nerds are not really outside this. Even among fellow geeks I can be an outcast due to not caring any more about what tech toys or games are "in" now (yet here I am on slashdot, go figure) than I did about what clothes and music were "in" when I was in junior high. I discovered quite early that I was too far out of the loop to even credibly fake interest in the trends of the moment, and that was that.
I do agree with the author's point that kids might not be as involved with popularity if they had something else to do. Though given how much he blamed it on life in the suburbs, I half expected him to start quoting Rush.
The facts are that some people just don't understand a parody, and can't tell the difference between a joke and FUD.
So what does this mean about the consequences of cloning for X-chromosome genetic disorders? Sounds ominous to me.
It does rather resemble a protection racket, though.
Yes... 5 minutes from now, you'll like it even less.
Technically reading is not a "manual" process, since it does not involve hands. Copying it down while reading it (in order to check the new copy against the original that you agreed to, or take it to your lawyer) would be.
British show? Like so many other SF shows, it's filmed in Canada (though on the other coast from many of the others, so it's closer to the UK than it is to Vancouver).