The USPTO is the only government division, the ONLY one, that operates at a profit...
That's why I can patent the "Method and apparatus for hybridization of deoxyribonucleic acid by means of repetitive insertion of a half-helix into a controlled environment that maintains constant temperature while rapidly increasing humidity" as a means of human reproduction.
You have a point there... well I'd much rather listen to Yamaha's synth voice than Britney... don't really care whose booty they put on the screen... as long as I don't have to listen to her shriek!
Now there's no need for Britney, Justin, or any of those other canned-pop "vocalists" (term used extremely loosely)...
Now American Idol doesn't even need to find teenie boppers to exploit for cash, they can just use the computer, have something much more talented, and work the thing to death..
And for the cost of an Xbox (which is, incidentally, much higher than the price), Microsoft gets to tell every other court in the land "See, we won on this occasion, therefore we're right that we own the copyright on anything that even SOUNDS like our name, which, incidentally, includes anything with either the word 'Micro' or the word 'Soft' in it..."
"Movies have improved dramatically over the last 30 years"
Yeah, no kidding! Look at the NEW star wars movies... Simplistic plot, one-dimensional characters, poor acting, but WOW, look at the effects and color!! They're amazing!
To be calling this a privacy violation, when the whole point of the grocery store discount card is to track what you buy so they can target specific marketing at you? Come on, people, nobody thinks their information is going to be kept private when they sign up for these things.
On Fullterton Road in Springfield, there is a non-descript brick office building with thousands of BRAND NEW cars, all white, in the parking lots. The sign on the side of the building says "Smithsonian Institute Catalog Division." A quick look at all of the security cameras and razor wire lets you know this is not the catalog division of the Smithsonian Institute.
I believe this is where they "prepare" (install bugs, monitoring devices, etc) cars that are shipped overseas for use by domestic and foreign diplomats. Not sure, though...
"Our product is advertised correctly. Before micronization, the silver that was used was rated at 97% percent pure. The silver was then put through our micronization process and added to a substrate to create our product compound."
This is precisely what it means. It's not funny, it's just the language that advertisers are allowed to use. In fact, putting the phrase "97% pure micronized silver" on the package isn't making any claims at all about anything. If it were to say:
Contains 97% Pure Micronized Silver
it would likely mean
Contains (97% Pure) (Micronized Silver)
and not
(Contains 97%) (Pure Micronized Silver)
They're making a claim about the raw material they used to make their product, not their product.
Also, 100% doesn't mean 100% in advertising speak. Take a bag of potato chips that says "Contains 100% Russett Potatoes" on the bag. Obviously, this is not true. It also contains oil, salt, preservatives, and whatever else, and there is almost as much oil as there is potato. Likewise, they're only making a claim as to the origin of the potatoes, not the contents of the bag. 100% of the potatoes are of the variety "Russett," not 100% of the contents of this bag are potatoes.
99% of what advertisers tell you is probably just-barely-legal bullshit. This is something that I've come to simply accept over the years.
The company I work for invented the first 16-bit microprocessor EVER, the CP1600 (ok, to be fair, it was a joint effort between us and a partner company), which was released in late 1974, when Intel was a scant 6 years old and PC meant "Pissing Clear." Intel was still a long 4 years away from introducing the 8086, which was only an 8-bit CPU anyway.
Nobody ever talks about the CP1600 because it was not oriented toward "personal" computers. After all, why the hell would anyone want their own computer? The CP1600 was designed and later integrated into Honeywell's TDC2000 distributed process control system, the very first distributed digital process control system.
Chances are, the gas that is sitting in your car was refined using a TDC2000 or descendant control system, so the CP1600 lives on in all of us just about every day.
Intel just got lucky with marketing, and it was the old consortium, LIM, that made the PC a reality. Those of you who were born before the 80's probably remember first hand what LIM was, but I'll leave it to exercise for you newbies to find out. You'll be amazed at who used to be bedfellows...
VXWorks is an ultra-solid O/S - no messing around. I know of several SIL-compliant industrial process control systems that use it. This is more likely a hardware failure due to a combination of temperature and the fact that the rusty dust flying everywhere is conductive...
I wonder if the NASA test engineers tried to simulate the Martian atmosphere (-65C, blowing conductive dust, etc) when they tested this thing...
Have you already forgotten. They think they OWN linux. Therefore, they are only using their own product. They will probably try to claim ownership of apache as well since it is frequently distributed with their product. Fargin Ice Holes..
Yes, however the DMCA is a law and the GPL is not. As such, *if* (and it doesn't) the DMCA contradicts the GPL, only software already released at the time the DMCA was passed would be grandfathered.
I had a flag, but I could not get around the machine to wave it out the opening without the thrower arm eviscerating me first. I do remember having a kill switch now, but it was next to the opening, so it did not do me any good since I couldn't get to it without sustaining massive bodily injury.
The year was 1988. I was the guy sitting in the trap house all day keeping the pigeon thrower full during an annual competition... the booth was mostly underground, of course, half full of water, and I had no freedom of movement if I didn't want the thrower arm to take off an extremity. They allowed me a small cooler for lunch and stuff to drink, although drinking was Ill-advised for obvious reasons. It was about 95 degrees outside, and because the roof of the underground booth was shingled and tarred, it was about 110 inside. There was not even a kill switch within my reach - no way for me to disable the machine if something were to go horribly wrong. Also, on about every 50th throw, it would misfire, throwing the pigeon right into the small overhang from the roof at the opening of the booth - causing shards of broken clay to fly around everywhere in the booth. Luckily I had safety glasses...
How is my suing a junk faxer frivolous if it is a fax I did not ask for? It's the junk faxers that are costing the taxpayers money, not the victims of their crimes.
Parent is not Offtopic, but rather insightful. It draws an insightful parallel to the music industry that would appear to support the RIAA. That does not make it Offtopic... It is actually completely correct that junk faxers and music downloaders/uploaders belong in similar groups..
A company is being held responsible for BREAKING THE LAW, and this is somehow a bad thing in your opinion? You sympathize with a company that knowingly and with intent, breaks a very specific and targeted law?
The thing that you're overlooking is that there is a *reason* the TCPA exists, and that is that to receive a FAX costs money. Before the TCPA was enacted, I would come into the office every morning and replace the roll of fax paper because we had been receiving faxes WE DID NOT WANT all night long. None of these junk faxers would honor a request not to send us these faxes. The junk faxers made the TCPA a necessity by stealing resources from their victims.
I have the right not to be bothered by telephone calls, faxes, and emails that I do not want. It is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a violation of the 1st Amendment to tell someone they cannot contact me if I do not want them to. I can turn off the TV, and I can simply choose not to buy the newspaper, but I cannot prevent someone from picking up the phone and calling me, and that's the line between protected speech and harassment.
At least I don't have a subscription to Forbes that I have to worry about cancelling...
If you want to create the appearance of effectiveness, you have to talk about every "problem" as an "inefficiency" and discuss your plan to mitigate it. Executives see everything in terms of "cost" and "risk." IT is a cost center, and an area of high risk. So, you've got the short end of both sticks.
Say that your department has problem "X." At said dinner, your dialog will go something like this:
"I have an idea for increasing the efficiency of our department. Right now, we are doing this 'X' way, but I think we can reduce risk and labor cost by doing it 'Y' way."
They don't want to hear that X is a problem, but they DO like to hear that Y is cheaper and less risky than X. Telling them that X is a problem is the same thing as telling them they did something wrong. Making a suggestion to improve upon X is a much better approach.
Also, if they don't agree with you, which is better, having told them their business process is flawed, or offering your suggestion to improve an already accepted process?
Just wish it had a full-sized fully weighted keyboard. This thing could take care of soooo many studio functions: workstation, multitrack recording, effects processing, editing.. hell just about everything.... I wonder if it uses the mATX motherboard's on-board sound card to do the recording, though;p
Speaking of sound cards - any recommendations for a GOOD 4 or 8 channel, 24 or 32bit recording card?
Slashdot Mirror
The USPTO is the only government division, the ONLY one, that operates at a profit...
That's why I can patent the "Method and apparatus for hybridization of deoxyribonucleic acid by means of repetitive insertion of a half-helix into a controlled environment that maintains constant temperature while rapidly increasing humidity" as a means of human reproduction.
iptables -t nat -I PREROUTING -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-ports $WEBSERVER_AUTH_PORT
if (user_authenticated)
iptables -t nat -I PREROUTING -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-ports $SQUID_PORT
We've gotta do something about these "common sense" patents...
You have a point there... well I'd much rather listen to Yamaha's synth voice than Britney... don't really care whose booty they put on the screen... as long as I don't have to listen to her shriek!
Now there's no need for Britney, Justin, or any of those other canned-pop "vocalists" (term used extremely loosely)...
Now American Idol doesn't even need to find teenie boppers to exploit for cash, they can just use the computer, have something much more talented, and work the thing to death..
I'll take three!
"Chief Hackberry, Chief Wiseberry, Chief Smartberry"
What, no CEO?
And for the cost of an Xbox (which is, incidentally, much higher than the price), Microsoft gets to tell every other court in the land "See, we won on this occasion, therefore we're right that we own the copyright on anything that even SOUNDS like our name, which, incidentally, includes anything with either the word 'Micro' or the word 'Soft' in it..."
Thanks a lot...
"Troi: Captain, I'm picking up hostile intentions."
....
Riker: Wait a minute! I don't understand!
Crusher: Captain, I'm picking up an energy buildup in the middle of the city. I don't know what that means, but it might be a weapon of some kind.
Worf: AAAARRRRGGGHHHHHHH!
Picard: Data, analysis
Data: Curious.
Picard: That's not analysis, Mr. Data.
Data: Apologies, Captain.
Picard: That isn't, either.
Riker: Wait a minute! I don't understand!
Data: Sensors detect high levels of Proprietary Software in the city they call "Redmond."
Picard: Ahhh, reminds me of a Vineyard I once knew in the South of France.
Worf: AAAAAARRRRGHGGGGHHHHH!!
Crusher: I'm picking up some kind of tractor beam coming from the surface. I don't know what that means, but it could be a weapon of some kind.
I just can't go on...
"Movies have improved dramatically over the last 30 years"
Yeah, no kidding! Look at the NEW star wars movies... Simplistic plot, one-dimensional characters, poor acting, but WOW, look at the effects and color!! They're amazing!
To be calling this a privacy violation, when the whole point of the grocery store discount card is to track what you buy so they can target specific marketing at you? Come on, people, nobody thinks their information is going to be kept private when they sign up for these things.
On Fullterton Road in Springfield, there is a non-descript brick office building with thousands of BRAND NEW cars, all white, in the parking lots. The sign on the side of the building says "Smithsonian Institute Catalog Division." A quick look at all of the security cameras and razor wire lets you know this is not the catalog division of the Smithsonian Institute.
I believe this is where they "prepare" (install bugs, monitoring devices, etc) cars that are shipped overseas for use by domestic and foreign diplomats. Not sure, though...
The entire country of The Czech Republic disappears from the Internet completely...
If ever the US wanted to start a Cyber Attack, they would certainly know what to do.. post it on Slashdot!
"Our product is advertised correctly. Before micronization, the silver that was used was rated at 97% percent pure. The silver was then put through our micronization process and added to a substrate to create our product compound."
This is precisely what it means. It's not funny, it's just the language that advertisers are allowed to use. In fact, putting the phrase "97% pure micronized silver" on the package isn't making any claims at all about anything. If it were to say:
Contains 97% Pure Micronized Silver
it would likely mean
Contains (97% Pure) (Micronized Silver)
and not
(Contains 97%) (Pure Micronized Silver)
They're making a claim about the raw material they used to make their product, not their product.
Also, 100% doesn't mean 100% in advertising speak. Take a bag of potato chips that says "Contains 100% Russett Potatoes" on the bag. Obviously, this is not true. It also contains oil, salt, preservatives, and whatever else, and there is almost as much oil as there is potato. Likewise, they're only making a claim as to the origin of the potatoes, not the contents of the bag. 100% of the potatoes are of the variety "Russett," not 100% of the contents of this bag are potatoes.
99% of what advertisers tell you is probably just-barely-legal bullshit. This is something that I've come to simply accept over the years.
A brief history of microprocessor development:
The company I work for invented the first 16-bit microprocessor EVER, the CP1600 (ok, to be fair, it was a joint effort between us and a partner company), which was released in late 1974, when Intel was a scant 6 years old and PC meant "Pissing Clear." Intel was still a long 4 years away from introducing the 8086, which was only an 8-bit CPU anyway.
Nobody ever talks about the CP1600 because it was not oriented toward "personal" computers. After all, why the hell would anyone want their own computer? The CP1600 was designed and later integrated into Honeywell's TDC2000 distributed process control system, the very first distributed digital process control system.
Chances are, the gas that is sitting in your car was refined using a TDC2000 or descendant control system, so the CP1600 lives on in all of us just about every day.
Intel just got lucky with marketing, and it was the old consortium, LIM, that made the PC a reality. Those of you who were born before the 80's probably remember first hand what LIM was, but I'll leave it to exercise for you newbies to find out. You'll be amazed at who used to be bedfellows...
VXWorks is an ultra-solid O/S - no messing around. I know of several SIL-compliant industrial process control systems that use it. This is more likely a hardware failure due to a combination of temperature and the fact that the rusty dust flying everywhere is conductive...
I wonder if the NASA test engineers tried to simulate the Martian atmosphere (-65C, blowing conductive dust, etc) when they tested this thing...
Have you already forgotten. They think they OWN linux. Therefore, they are only using their own product. They will probably try to claim ownership of apache as well since it is frequently distributed with their product. Fargin Ice Holes..
Yes, however the DMCA is a law and the GPL is not. As such, *if* (and it doesn't) the DMCA contradicts the GPL, only software already released at the time the DMCA was passed would be grandfathered.
I had a flag, but I could not get around the machine to wave it out the opening without the thrower arm eviscerating me first. I do remember having a kill switch now, but it was next to the opening, so it did not do me any good since I couldn't get to it without sustaining massive bodily injury.
Damn, here, have a beer, it's on me...
I'm interested in talking to you. Check out my website and you'll find out why.
The year was 1988. I was the guy sitting in the trap house all day keeping the pigeon thrower full during an annual competition... the booth was mostly underground, of course, half full of water, and I had no freedom of movement if I didn't want the thrower arm to take off an extremity. They allowed me a small cooler for lunch and stuff to drink, although drinking was Ill-advised for obvious reasons. It was about 95 degrees outside, and because the roof of the underground booth was shingled and tarred, it was about 110 inside. There was not even a kill switch within my reach - no way for me to disable the machine if something were to go horribly wrong. Also, on about every 50th throw, it would misfire, throwing the pigeon right into the small overhang from the roof at the opening of the booth - causing shards of broken clay to fly around everywhere in the booth. Luckily I had safety glasses...
I have one of those. It works quite well and pays for itself easily....
How is my suing a junk faxer frivolous if it is a fax I did not ask for? It's the junk faxers that are costing the taxpayers money, not the victims of their crimes.
Parent is not Offtopic, but rather insightful. It draws an insightful parallel to the music industry that would appear to support the RIAA. That does not make it Offtopic... It is actually completely correct that junk faxers and music downloaders/uploaders belong in similar groups..
Subject: You're kidding, right?
A company is being held responsible for BREAKING THE LAW, and this is somehow a bad thing in your opinion? You sympathize with a company that knowingly and with intent, breaks a very specific and targeted law?
The thing that you're overlooking is that there is a *reason* the TCPA exists, and that is that to receive a FAX costs money. Before the TCPA was enacted, I would come into the office every morning and replace the roll of fax paper because we had been receiving faxes WE DID NOT WANT all night long. None of these junk faxers would honor a request not to send us these faxes. The junk faxers made the TCPA a necessity by stealing resources from their victims.
I have the right not to be bothered by telephone calls, faxes, and emails that I do not want. It is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a violation of the 1st Amendment to tell someone they cannot contact me if I do not want them to. I can turn off the TV, and I can simply choose not to buy the newspaper, but I cannot prevent someone from picking up the phone and calling me, and that's the line between protected speech and harassment.
At least I don't have a subscription to Forbes that I have to worry about cancelling...
If you want to create the appearance of effectiveness, you have to talk about every "problem" as an "inefficiency" and discuss your plan to mitigate it. Executives see everything in terms of "cost" and "risk." IT is a cost center, and an area of high risk. So, you've got the short end of both sticks.
Say that your department has problem "X." At said dinner, your dialog will go something like this:
"I have an idea for increasing the efficiency of our department. Right now, we are doing this 'X' way, but I think we can reduce risk and labor cost by doing it 'Y' way."
They don't want to hear that X is a problem, but they DO like to hear that Y is cheaper and less risky than X. Telling them that X is a problem is the same thing as telling them they did something wrong. Making a suggestion to improve upon X is a much better approach.
Also, if they don't agree with you, which is better, having told them their business process is flawed, or offering your suggestion to improve an already accepted process?
Just food for thought...
Just wish it had a full-sized fully weighted keyboard. This thing could take care of soooo many studio functions: workstation, multitrack recording, effects processing, editing.. hell just about everything.... I wonder if it uses the mATX motherboard's on-board sound card to do the recording, though ;p
Speaking of sound cards - any recommendations for a GOOD 4 or 8 channel, 24 or 32bit recording card?