So I can get a tiny underpowered computer for $1395. Big deal. I can get a better computer for a lot less (even if I shell out a little extra for one of those small cube cases and M.B.) And at that price this toy is underpowered in every way, including hard drive space and memory. And a real computer will be less expensive in the long run, even after it's expected life this toy's power savings doesn't come close to justifying the price. Who can it be aimed at? The individual isn't gong to pay this and needs more anyway (or thinks he needs, if he thinks he needs a server at all), and can likely spare the space a single small format PC would take up as well as this. No large cluster of these is likely to be built (certainly not at this price), people who need lots of servers because of space will use Blade systems (and Google will continue to prove these are other low cost but amazingly functional approaches).
Now both the Americans and the New Zealanders there are refusing to sell him fuel.
Good for them. Why, you sell this wacky Australian some fuel and twenty or thirty years down the road some other "tourist" is likely to do the same thing. How awful. Anartica is a pricate club for the scientifically privledged with political clout and it should stay that way.
This bill will do absolutely nothing to help. It promotes opt-out, as if spam was only a U.S. problem. Put your e-mail address on the list and expect tons of spam from outside the US. Keep it off and the damn spammers will claim that as an excuse why they should spam you. And when this doomed-to-fail bill has no positive effect, the government will not admit they screwed up in the structure of the bill, rather they will use the failure to say you can't fight spam with bills.
The only hope I see now is that maybe the E.U. will get their act together and show up the corrupt U.S. idiots.
Yea, they're gubment officials and, therefore, totally incapable of making an intelligent purchase decision
No, you miss the point entirely. They have a position where they get a big paycheck and get to steal more. They want to keep it. They control the voting machines. If they can get machines that report what they tell them to report, with no paper audit trail to prove differently, they have a much better chance to stay in office that with honest systems.
Interesting. I can certainly invalidate many of the claims, particularly the first, with prior art. This being the case and being pretty evident in this case, how can the first claim even be made?
Yes, but before you even enter the casino you know that the odds are stacked in favor of the casino. That's NOT CHEATING.
Absolutely correct, as far as it goes. But do you really know the odds in a computer controled slot machine? If the software is tweaked to prevent Jackpot or other payouts from coming up as often as they should based on the number of positions on each wheel, I consider that cheating - and there is abundant evidence that that is happening (as well as several other deceptive things in the slot programming).
When you format your floppy to FAT, you are not USING FAT in YOUR product. An MS product is using the FAT format to make the floppy FAT. Again you are NOT using the FAT format in YOUR product.
If I'm being a retard it's only in posting a response to an A.C.
Clearly any distributed media with FAT on it falls under this. MS isn't trying to charge the USB pen makers 25 cents for the one machine that formats those pens, they want 25 cents for each pen. Ditto for any other memory product that can be FAT formatted. While this current threat is likely aimed at media like USB drives, other lash menory products, and even hard drives (some do come pre-formated lately), there is nothing in Microsoft's post that excludes small capacity low cost media (floppies), so there is every reason to believe that it should apply to this media too.
The licence would be paid for by the company hat made the floppy disk.
Not if I didn't buy it formatted. If a 25 cent formatted Microsoft "tax" suddenly applies then unformatted floppies will become the norm again. Nor will the "tax" have been paid if I buy an Apple formatted floppy and then reformat it for FAT. So there are valid ways I could have a floppy, format it, and want to pay my 25 cents to Mr. Gates.
And I used the word tax in quotes so I don't get flamed on what a tax is, but given the legally established fact that Microsoft is an abusive monopoly that illegally abuses that monopoly position, and that here we have them backing up a very dubious claim on a 27 year old technology with a legal patent applied for and granted less than ten years ago, it's a fee with the force of government behind it; damn close to a tax.
People like this need to be jailed immediately. That's absolutely innexcusable.
True, but instead people like that have come up with a system where they use our money to buy machines that they can rig and stay in office with. You do understand there's a reason why they knowingly buy defective voting machines, don't you?
A funny/sad sideline is that in Nevada, every year or two a programmer or engineer goes to jail for exploiting slot machines."
While it's worth noting because it shows the potential to cheat even in a closely watched industry (which the voting machine racket clearly isn't), one should note that programmer or engineer (who) goes to jail for exploiting slot machines is trying to cheat the casino. When the casino uses the software to cheat the player ist's a completely different issue.
I'm a computer professional. On rare occasions I still used floppy disks that I have formatted and put business product on. I might distribute two or three a year to business contacts this way. It has come to my attention that Microsoft now wishes to enforce it's patents on the FAT file system and I believe that the floppies that I distribute might fall under this extension of you monopoly power. Therefore I would like to request that you provide me with the proper paperwork and licensing agreements so that I can pay my 25 cents each time I do distribute a FAT formatted floppy with my product on it.
If we can take down web sites, perhaps the Microsoft legal department should receive a few million requests from people who want to be sure they don't cheat bill out of his two bits when they format and distribute a floppy.
So I'm a small software developer. I honestly buy my OS and software development tool licenses. I make something that will fit on one or more floppies and I sell it, formatting the floppies in the process. I have to pay Microsoft 25 cents for each floppy I distribute?
here's the fist of the patentes in question. Filed for only in 1995, granted in 1996.
I've looked at it, but I don't have a good understanding of how claims in a patent work. If each claim represents something they own then I don't see any way they can makes claims as broad as claim 1. If the patent is only for something that matches each and every claim, then it would seem that a very minor (even compatable) varient on one part of any these claims would allow an alternate file system to co-exist that would not infringe the m$ patents. But then it doesn't make much sense for this (or any) patent to go into extreme detail in making claims that would limit what the patent applies to.
How strange. They couldn't stop DR-DOS, which clearly could format FAT partitions, but now (even after the loss of a Federal court case that proved they abuse their monopoly power) they can stop people from using FAT? And FAT is well over 20 years old, Microsoft's own site states The first FAT file system was developed by Microsoft in 1976. Stranger still, they didn't get the first FAT patent until 20 yaers later, in 1996! (Applied for in 1995.) This is wrong in so many ways.
And if they can stop a manufacturer from delivering a product such as a USB drive pre-formatted with FAT, then can't they do the same with a pre-formatted floppy disk? For that matter, can't they do the same with a floppy disk that contains software? Anyone who sells PC software on floppies will owe Microsoft money! (There are less today than there were just five years ago, thanks to CD's, but there are still many small businesses out there. I just got a driver on a floppy last week with something I bought).
From the website The largest known prime number, discovered by the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS), has 909,526 digits.
The Mersenne search just officially announced yesterday (it had come out to the group last month was was still being confimed by several re-checks) that Michael Shafer discovered the 40th known Mersenne prime, 2^20996011-1. Congratulations Michael. This prime is over 6.3 million digits, beating the previous world record prime by over 2 million digits. So a 6.3 million digit prime is known, replacing a 2 million digit one. The ten million one is not that far off.
You can get the software to try to find the next Mersenne prime here
Why should it be that a prosecutor could not appeal?
Because the prosecutor already had great power over the individual by bringing charges against them. The individual, perhaps complete innocent, is at great risk and expense to defend himself. If after being found innocent the charges can just be made again, the individual incurs additional cost and risk (as well as loss of time, ie freedom) even though the courts have already found that he was innocent.
In telling a prosecutor that it's OK to put a person through a trial even if they are not ready to make their case, you open the door to a lot of needless prosecution. There is little disencentive to not charge an individual even when your case isn't strong and complete, since if you loose you can bring charges again, and the individual will actually be in worse shape than before (will have less funds to defend himself, for one thing). A system where you cannot be found innocent and then retried is society's defense against excessive prosecution. And this case is a perfect example of it.
from Mandrake's site:
(Note: The Beta version does not support USB key features).
and
the MandrakeMove Boxed Edition provides the ability to save configuration and personal data to a USB key.
So this release canidate cannot save to the USB key, and it looks like a download version may never do that, since they emphasise that it's the Boxed Edition that does that.
Bummer.
Ain't it great to see that our government has nothing better to do than protect spammers, as in "Hello, we've been harassing this guy and now he's threatened to retaliate. Please arrest him for us."
Igor is the lab assistant in several Frankenstein movies.
I would like to know what those "several movies" are. Igor is certainly not in the book. In the 1930's clasic movie the lab assistant is "Fritz", not Igor. The only "Frankenstein movie" that I know that used Igor was the spoof by Mel Brooks. Perhaps this website is trying to associate it's debugging with a spoof!
If the DCMA can be defended against by Consumers have a reasonable expectation, then I think we would all be a lot safer from the DCMA. Somehow I think this concept is going to be limited to cases where the company claiming the DCMA doesn't have much cash to lube the wheels of justice.
Slashdot Mirror
No, I specifically remember Maxwell Smart's old Chinese enemy, the Craw!
OK, I get that it's a Chinese scientist working on this, but it's about language. Should the Slashdot article really have been written in Chlinglish?
So I can get a tiny underpowered computer for $1395. Big deal. I can get a better computer for a lot less (even if I shell out a little extra for one of those small cube cases and M.B.) And at that price this toy is underpowered in every way, including hard drive space and memory. And a real computer will be less expensive in the long run, even after it's expected life this toy's power savings doesn't come close to justifying the price. Who can it be aimed at? The individual isn't gong to pay this and needs more anyway (or thinks he needs, if he thinks he needs a server at all), and can likely spare the space a single small format PC would take up as well as this. No large cluster of these is likely to be built (certainly not at this price), people who need lots of servers because of space will use Blade systems (and Google will continue to prove these are other low cost but amazingly functional approaches).
Good for them. Why, you sell this wacky Australian some fuel and twenty or thirty years down the road some other "tourist" is likely to do the same thing. How awful. Anartica is a pricate club for the scientifically privledged with political clout and it should stay that way.
The only hope I see now is that maybe the E.U. will get their act together and show up the corrupt U.S. idiots.
No, you miss the point entirely. They have a position where they get a big paycheck and get to steal more. They want to keep it. They control the voting machines. If they can get machines that report what they tell them to report, with no paper audit trail to prove differently, they have a much better chance to stay in office that with honest systems.
Interesting. I can certainly invalidate many of the claims, particularly the first, with prior art. This being the case and being pretty evident in this case, how can the first claim even be made?
Absolutely correct, as far as it goes. But do you really know the odds in a computer controled slot machine? If the software is tweaked to prevent Jackpot or other payouts from coming up as often as they should based on the number of positions on each wheel, I consider that cheating - and there is abundant evidence that that is happening (as well as several other deceptive things in the slot programming).
If I'm being a retard it's only in posting a response to an A.C.
Clearly any distributed media with FAT on it falls under this. MS isn't trying to charge the USB pen makers 25 cents for the one machine that formats those pens, they want 25 cents for each pen. Ditto for any other memory product that can be FAT formatted. While this current threat is likely aimed at media like USB drives, other lash menory products, and even hard drives (some do come pre-formated lately), there is nothing in Microsoft's post that excludes small capacity low cost media (floppies), so there is every reason to believe that it should apply to this media too.
Not if I didn't buy it formatted. If a 25 cent formatted Microsoft "tax" suddenly applies then unformatted floppies will become the norm again. Nor will the "tax" have been paid if I buy an Apple formatted floppy and then reformat it for FAT. So there are valid ways I could have a floppy, format it, and want to pay my 25 cents to Mr. Gates.
And I used the word tax in quotes so I don't get flamed on what a tax is, but given the legally established fact that Microsoft is an abusive monopoly that illegally abuses that monopoly position, and that here we have them backing up a very dubious claim on a 27 year old technology with a legal patent applied for and granted less than ten years ago, it's a fee with the force of government behind it; damn close to a tax.
True, but instead people like that have come up with a system where they use our money to buy machines that they can rig and stay in office with. You do understand there's a reason why they knowingly buy defective voting machines, don't you?
While it's worth noting because it shows the potential to cheat even in a closely watched industry (which the voting machine racket clearly isn't), one should note that programmer or engineer (who) goes to jail for exploiting slot machines is trying to cheat the casino. When the casino uses the software to cheat the player ist's a completely different issue.
Dear Sirs:
I'm a computer professional. On rare occasions I still used floppy disks that I have formatted and put business product on. I might distribute two or three a year to business contacts this way. It has come to my attention that Microsoft now wishes to enforce it's patents on the FAT file system and I believe that the floppies that I distribute might fall under this extension of you monopoly power. Therefore I would like to request that you provide me with the proper paperwork and licensing agreements so that I can pay my 25 cents each time I do distribute a FAT formatted floppy with my product on it.
If we can take down web sites, perhaps the Microsoft legal department should receive a few million requests from people who want to be sure they don't cheat bill out of his two bits when they format and distribute a floppy.
So I'm a small software developer. I honestly buy my OS and software development tool licenses. I make something that will fit on one or more floppies and I sell it, formatting the floppies in the process. I have to pay Microsoft 25 cents for each floppy I distribute?
here's the fist of the patentes in question. Filed for only in 1995, granted in 1996. I've looked at it, but I don't have a good understanding of how claims in a patent work. If each claim represents something they own then I don't see any way they can makes claims as broad as claim 1. If the patent is only for something that matches each and every claim, then it would seem that a very minor (even compatable) varient on one part of any these claims would allow an alternate file system to co-exist that would not infringe the m$ patents. But then it doesn't make much sense for this (or any) patent to go into extreme detail in making claims that would limit what the patent applies to.
And if they can stop a manufacturer from delivering a product such as a USB drive pre-formatted with FAT, then can't they do the same with a pre-formatted floppy disk? For that matter, can't they do the same with a floppy disk that contains software? Anyone who sells PC software on floppies will owe Microsoft money! (There are less today than there were just five years ago, thanks to CD's, but there are still many small businesses out there. I just got a driver on a floppy last week with something I bought).
From the website The largest known prime number, discovered by the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS), has 909,526 digits. The Mersenne search just officially announced yesterday (it had come out to the group last month was was still being confimed by several re-checks) that Michael Shafer discovered the 40th known Mersenne prime, 2^20996011-1. Congratulations Michael. This prime is over 6.3 million digits, beating the previous world record prime by over 2 million digits. So a 6.3 million digit prime is known, replacing a 2 million digit one. The ten million one is not that far off.
You can get the software to try to find the next Mersenne prime here
...where we move the trial to the location where we get the verdict we want.
Because the prosecutor already had great power over the individual by bringing charges against them. The individual, perhaps complete innocent, is at great risk and expense to defend himself. If after being found innocent the charges can just be made again, the individual incurs additional cost and risk (as well as loss of time, ie freedom) even though the courts have already found that he was innocent.
In telling a prosecutor that it's OK to put a person through a trial even if they are not ready to make their case, you open the door to a lot of needless prosecution. There is little disencentive to not charge an individual even when your case isn't strong and complete, since if you loose you can bring charges again, and the individual will actually be in worse shape than before (will have less funds to defend himself, for one thing). A system where you cannot be found innocent and then retried is society's defense against excessive prosecution. And this case is a perfect example of it.
and
the MandrakeMove Boxed Edition provides the ability to save configuration and personal data to a USB key.
So this release canidate cannot save to the USB key, and it looks like a download version may never do that, since they emphasise that it's the Boxed Edition that does that. Bummer.
Strange that Microsoft would admit this, in light of Longhorn and how many people believe Bill Gates is a bad guy.
Ain't it great to see that our government has nothing better to do than protect spammers, as in "Hello, we've been harassing this guy and now he's threatened to retaliate. Please arrest him for us."
I would like to know what those "several movies" are. Igor is certainly not in the book. In the 1930's clasic movie the lab assistant is "Fritz", not Igor. The only "Frankenstein movie" that I know that used Igor was the spoof by Mel Brooks. Perhaps this website is trying to associate it's debugging with a spoof!
No, I haven't. It's a movie!! Human's didn't understand R2, they just did what George Lucas told them to do!
If the DCMA can be defended against by Consumers have a reasonable expectation, then I think we would all be a lot safer from the DCMA. Somehow I think this concept is going to be limited to cases where the company claiming the DCMA doesn't have much cash to lube the wheels of justice.