Apple shouldn't have blundered with this patent oversight, [... ]
Apple didn't blunder, but in all likelihood took the correct position that a displayed representation of a heirarchical filesystem was unpatentable. After all, tree-style directory display utilities have been around since MS-DOS 2.0 (and probably much earlier).
This is so flipping obvious, it's painful. There's no patentable material here, and Apple did the right thing by not filing for one. That Creative actually managed to obtain one just serves as further proof of how monsterously fscked up the USPTO is.
Of course, we will not see either one of them agitate for patent reform.
The larger screens of days gone by could hide many sins. Remember watching Star Wars your first time? Looked great, didn't it?
Uh, no, it didn't.
Star Wars got put into the Northgate Theater, the sh*ttiest cinema in Marin County. Clearly, it was assigned to that venue because it was widely believed the film was going to be a flop ("Space opera? That'll pull in maybe a few kids..."). But when Star Wars became a runaway success, virtually defining the term "blockbuster," you'd think they would have moved it to one of the better screens in Marin.
Nope. Star Warsstayed in that miserable hole for its entire run. Part of me wants to believe that George Lucas's obsession with film presentation quality (THX, digital cinema, etc.) can be traced to a fateful day when he went to see his own film in Northgate Theater and was so appalled that he vowed to create and market a superior experience so that sort of thing would never happen again.
Not that I'm bitter about any of this, mind you...:-)
My sweetie and I went to see Sky High (cute film; see it in your preferred venue). We were in the third row (sweetie likes it there). Ten minutes after the film started, this family marches in in the row behind us and cacophonously sits down. When they're not gibbering away to each other, they're munching and smacking loudly.
Then, one of the younger kids starts talking at normal speaking volume about some minor discomfort or something. The parents don't shush her, or remind her to be quiet because this is, y'know, a theater... They engage her in conversation, trying to discover what her problem is.
We ended up moving to different seats. They carried on, oblivious to their obnoxious behavior. Frankly, I was astounded. I mean, this is basic social knowledge, isn't it?
I realize the punchline is weak -- and that's part of the point -- but there's no point telling the joke at all if you're going to keep leaving it off.
Schwab
What a Pathetically Stupid Idea
on
MS & Game Rentals
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I'm pleased to see that Microsoft has started early in pissing off their distributors and retailers, who really don't appreciate vendors doing an end-run around them, leaving them with shelf stock that's harder to sell.
That said, I don't think the retailers have anything to worry about immediately, as you'd have to be an idiot to pay $14.95 a month to rent a game you can buy for $20.00.
I just bought a copy of Dungeon Siege, which included the Legends of Aranna expansion pack, for $20.00 at Fry's. Not only do I own the damn thing and not get dunned every month, but I also don't have to install some insidious piece of spyware/copy-protection enforcement sh*t which phones home reporting my usage and any other damn thing they "need" to know about. Mechwarrior 4 can also be found on the cheap rack for $20.00. And if you really want an amazing bargain, grab Loki's Descent 3 for $4.95, which includes the Mercenary expansion pack.
I wish these mendacious little sh*ts would get their story straight. Is unsanctioned copying over the Internet the biggest threat to their industry or not?
Or is it CD copying?
Or is it Asian counterfeiting rings?
Or is it little green men from Ganymede selling replicators on the black market?
C'mon, guys, if you want the "theft" meme to be taken even remotely seriously by intelligent people, you need to at least keep your story consistent.
I'm telling you that they are in fact allowed to do just that.
...And what I'm saying is that. even though they're allowed to do that, their behavior will have consequences. No one looks kindly on a spoiled, ill-mannered child.
If you don't like it, tough.
Actually, tough for Apple. As interested as I am in playing with OS-X, they will not be receiving my dollars. I don't play with snotty brats.
It's theirs. They made it. They can do with it whatever they want. They have that right. If you don't like it, go code a better OS yourself or something, but don't bitch at them - that only makes you sound like a kid who can't get his/her way.
Or in playground terms: It is indeed their ball, and they can take it home with them if they feel like it.
Yes. They indeed have that right, as does everyone. "I'll let you play with my ball only if I get to score all the touchdowns/goals." However, such behavior is widely regarded as socially unredeeming because it's... well, childish.
There is no functional difference between a child imposing selfish conditions on the use of their ball, and Apple imposing selfish conditions (Apple-branded hardware only) on their use of "their" OS. In fact, the issue of "whose ball it is" is blurred in the latter case, since I'm only borrowing the child's ball, but I will have purchased OS-X. No matter how you try and slice the semantics, it's still childish behavior, and you shouldn't expect anyone to play with you for long if you behave this way.
Belkin's Nostromo SpeedPad n52 on the left hand, [... ]
Bah! Belkin are evil; they never apologized for that wireless router that hijacked HTTP requests to their co-marketing site trying to sell you parental blocking software.
I found the Elumix to look kinda cheesy and have a lousy key feel. I myself prefer the Saitek Gaming Keyboard. It doesn't look as much like "rice" (personal opinion, of course), and has a vastly superior, solid feel. By comparison, I've found nearly all Logitech keyboards to feel far too mushy for my liking.
I, too, am a Razer user, ever since the original Boomslang; currently using a Diamondback. Darned fine products.
Over half of all patents being applied for now are in the areas of electronics and related technologies, so they are trying like mad to hire electrical engineers and train them as patent reviewers. This takes 4-5 years of training unless the reviewer has a legal background already.
Stupid Question: What the heck has a law background got to do with examining and approving patents?
A patent is not legislation. A patent is an engineering document, written by an engineer describing to other engineers how to re-create their work. Law shouldn't enter into it (unless you're patenting new legal processes).
The triple damages are awarded against a willful infringer - someone who knows a valid patent exists and yet infringes anyway. The possibility of being liable for triple damages actually ENCOURAGES an accused infringer to do a RIGOROUS prior art search to invalidate the patent.
First off, the "rigorous prior art search," should be done by the USPTO. As you correctly point out, that's what the applicant is paying for. The USPTO should be approving far fewer patents than it does.
Second, the triple damages clause has precisely the opposite effect you describe. As an example, Electronic Arts has a policy: No employee may research any patent, or share the existence of any patent with other EA employees. Violations of this policy will result in disciplinary action, up to and including termination. This presumably helps the company maintain plausible deniability. (So much for "professional ethics" and "enlightened self-interest".)
The system is broken, both legally and functionally. Fix it.
I visited WindowsUpdate this afternoon to update my copy of Win2K, and was presented with a Web page asking me to download a new "Update Tool". The page listed all the "new" features of the tool. I clicked continue to begin download and installation.
It was only then I was informed that I had been fooled into downloading and installing the Windows Genuine Advantage Validation Tool. By which time, of course, it was too late to do anything about it.
This is misleading, bordering on outright fraud. You'd think a corporation with a criminal conviction on its record would at least pretend to be more responsible and open about its practices, but apparently their arrogance and hubris knows no bounds. It is readily apparent that they are completely untrustworthy.
Format your disk and install Linux. It's the only way to be sure.
You have triple redundant storage of certain critical data. Write a subroutine that takes three 32 bit integers and produces a result where each bit is "voted on" by the corresponding bit in the three inputs.
The subject of reconstituted Neanderthals was briefly explored in Jasper Fforde's book, "Lost in a Good Book" (sequel to, "The Eyre Affair"). Both books take place on an alternate-history Earth where the Crimean War has lasted for hundreds of years, and genetic engineering is a consumer product (you can sequence and grow your own pet Dodo bird). Neanderthals were recreated for the purpose of being cheaply-made foot soldiers for the war effort. However, it turned out that Neanderthals are completely non-aggressive creatures; the whole concept of conflict is incomprehensible to them. So they ended up using them as cheap labor for low-end, low-skill jobs, such as fast-food restaurant server, or SkyRail driver.
'Thals don't figure prominently until the fourth book in the series, "Something Rotten," where they turn out to be instrumental in a high-stakes world cup croquet tournament.
All four books are a hell of a lot of fun, and approach the level of wit and humor of Douglas Adams. Recommended.
...the two biggest factors working against my business are 1: competition from mass market retailers like Best Buy and Borders, and 2: piracy.
Number 2 is a big one--I would guess that at least half of my customers download anime from bittorrent. I've had hundreds of people tell me, "oh that series is great!" before it's even come out. Of course, once they download it they don't want to buy it.
Y'know, I think you're being a little disingenuous here. From the front page on your own site, we find:
Otakurama was opened to fill a niche in Indianapolis: a store devoted to anime, manga, and Japanese pop culture. In the past three years the popularity of anime DVDs and manga have swelled, but from my experience it seems that most fans prefer to "get their fix" online, at conventions, or at the big retail stores. Well you know the saying: if you can't beat 'em, join em. Over the summer, Otakurama will be transforming into a specialty e-retailer and convention exhibitor. [emphasis mine]
So it sounds to me like, rather than being "killed" by "piracy", you've noticed a change in the market landscape, and are adapting to try and meet the change. In other words, you're responding to your market rather than whining about the way things "should be."
That's the way it's supposed to work, and bravo to you, sir, for having the presence of mind to recognize it, and the courage to act on it. I don't imagine the transition will be at all easy -- navigating uncharted territory rarely is -- but the fact you're willing to give it a go, in my book, puts you ahead of the game.
Does it work with Kaffe 1.1.5 out of the box? Or do I still have to disable file locking by hand (osgi.locking=none)?
Schwab
Weren't OEM's B*tching About This w/r/t Browsers?
on
Windows XP N a Bust
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Hmm. Maybe the OEMs could -- gee, I don't know -- pre-install a media player of their choice. I seem to recall a big criminal lawsuit a while back when OEMs wanted to pre-install this newfangled thing called a Web browser, but Microsoft wouldn't let them.
Did the OEMs suddenly lose all their imagination? Or are there not as many "partership" opportunities with media players?
Congratulations. You've just created a broadcast forum for the disruptive antics of 5kr1p7 k1dd13s and h4x0r5:
"Yo, b00tbl0ck!"
"What up?"
"My worm made ISN!"
"Whoop-de-shit. Remember that AOL outage last week? Mine. ISN covered it for two days."
"No way!"
"Way. Props on your first ISN troll, dude, but l337 is not you."
My only concerns is that since there is no encryption on DNG files, can you prevent people from turning JPGs into DNG files?
Since DNG is just another file format, there's nothing to prevent you from transcoding from JPEG to DNG. However, it should be possible to immediately distinguish between a JPEG->DNG file and a "true" DNG file just by looking at them, because of the DCT artifacts.
But your larger question is correct: Posession of a DNG file will prove exactly nothing.
You do realize there are tools out there that can completely replace the EXIF block, yes? (Granted, most people wouldn't know how to drive them, but still...)
I wrote an EXIF thumbnail extractor about a year ago. EXIF is just a TIFF-formatted collection of data used to describe the photo. As you might imagine, some cameras get the EXIF data wrong, or leave out bits people consider important, so there are tools available to modify it. There's nothing special about it; if you know TIFF format well enough, you could bang out a valid EXIF header using nothing more than a hex editor.
So no, I wouldn't consider EXIF data to be a reasonable source for corroborating "ownership" claims.
Slashdot Mirror
Apple didn't blunder, but in all likelihood took the correct position that a displayed representation of a heirarchical filesystem was unpatentable. After all, tree-style directory display utilities have been around since MS-DOS 2.0 (and probably much earlier).
This is so flipping obvious, it's painful. There's no patentable material here, and Apple did the right thing by not filing for one. That Creative actually managed to obtain one just serves as further proof of how monsterously fscked up the USPTO is.
Of course, we will not see either one of them agitate for patent reform.
Schwab
Uh, no, it didn't.
Star Wars got put into the Northgate Theater, the sh*ttiest cinema in Marin County. Clearly, it was assigned to that venue because it was widely believed the film was going to be a flop ("Space opera? That'll pull in maybe a few kids..."). But when Star Wars became a runaway success, virtually defining the term "blockbuster," you'd think they would have moved it to one of the better screens in Marin.
Nope. Star Wars stayed in that miserable hole for its entire run. Part of me wants to believe that George Lucas's obsession with film presentation quality (THX, digital cinema, etc.) can be traced to a fateful day when he went to see his own film in Northgate Theater and was so appalled that he vowed to create and market a superior experience so that sort of thing would never happen again.
Not that I'm bitter about any of this, mind you... :-)
Schwab
My sweetie and I went to see Sky High (cute film; see it in your preferred venue). We were in the third row (sweetie likes it there). Ten minutes after the film started, this family marches in in the row behind us and cacophonously sits down. When they're not gibbering away to each other, they're munching and smacking loudly.
Then, one of the younger kids starts talking at normal speaking volume about some minor discomfort or something. The parents don't shush her, or remind her to be quiet because this is, y'know, a theater... They engage her in conversation, trying to discover what her problem is.
We ended up moving to different seats. They carried on, oblivious to their obnoxious behavior. Frankly, I was astounded. I mean, this is basic social knowledge, isn't it?
Schwab
I realize the punchline is weak -- and that's part of the point -- but there's no point telling the joke at all if you're going to keep leaving it off.
Schwab
That said, I don't think the retailers have anything to worry about immediately, as you'd have to be an idiot to pay $14.95 a month to rent a game you can buy for $20.00.
I just bought a copy of Dungeon Siege, which included the Legends of Aranna expansion pack, for $20.00 at Fry's. Not only do I own the damn thing and not get dunned every month, but I also don't have to install some insidious piece of spyware/copy-protection enforcement sh*t which phones home reporting my usage and any other damn thing they "need" to know about. Mechwarrior 4 can also be found on the cheap rack for $20.00. And if you really want an amazing bargain, grab Loki's Descent 3 for $4.95, which includes the Mercenary expansion pack.
This is a really, really dumb idea.
Schwab
(Honestly, I'm not sure how you intend to work the punchline in to this.)
Or is it CD copying?
Or is it Asian counterfeiting rings?
Or is it little green men from Ganymede selling replicators on the black market?
C'mon, guys, if you want the "theft" meme to be taken even remotely seriously by intelligent people, you need to at least keep your story consistent.
Schwab
...And what I'm saying is that. even though they're allowed to do that, their behavior will have consequences. No one looks kindly on a spoiled, ill-mannered child.
Actually, tough for Apple. As interested as I am in playing with OS-X, they will not be receiving my dollars. I don't play with snotty brats.
Schwab
Yes. They indeed have that right, as does everyone. "I'll let you play with my ball only if I get to score all the touchdowns/goals." However, such behavior is widely regarded as socially unredeeming because it's... well, childish.
There is no functional difference between a child imposing selfish conditions on the use of their ball, and Apple imposing selfish conditions (Apple-branded hardware only) on their use of "their" OS. In fact, the issue of "whose ball it is" is blurred in the latter case, since I'm only borrowing the child's ball, but I will have purchased OS-X. No matter how you try and slice the semantics, it's still childish behavior, and you shouldn't expect anyone to play with you for long if you behave this way.
Schwab
Bah! Belkin are evil; they never apologized for that wireless router that hijacked HTTP requests to their co-marketing site trying to sell you parental blocking software.
And besides, the Thrustmaster Tacticalboard completely 0wn5 the n52.
Schwab
I, too, am a Razer user, ever since the original Boomslang; currently using a Diamondback. Darned fine products.
Schwab
Stupid Question: What the heck has a law background got to do with examining and approving patents?
A patent is not legislation. A patent is an engineering document, written by an engineer describing to other engineers how to re-create their work. Law shouldn't enter into it (unless you're patenting new legal processes).
Schwab
First off, the "rigorous prior art search," should be done by the USPTO. As you correctly point out, that's what the applicant is paying for. The USPTO should be approving far fewer patents than it does.
Second, the triple damages clause has precisely the opposite effect you describe. As an example, Electronic Arts has a policy: No employee may research any patent, or share the existence of any patent with other EA employees. Violations of this policy will result in disciplinary action, up to and including termination. This presumably helps the company maintain plausible deniability. (So much for "professional ethics" and "enlightened self-interest".)
The system is broken, both legally and functionally. Fix it.
Schwab
It was only then I was informed that I had been fooled into downloading and installing the Windows Genuine Advantage Validation Tool. By which time, of course, it was too late to do anything about it.
This is misleading, bordering on outright fraud. You'd think a corporation with a criminal conviction on its record would at least pretend to be more responsible and open about its practices, but apparently their arrogance and hubris knows no bounds. It is readily apparent that they are completely untrustworthy.
Format your disk and install Linux. It's the only way to be sure.
Schwab
Yes, but is ATI's support of suspend-to-disk still broken? 'Cause I've got this laptop here, you see...
Schwab
Schwab
'Thals don't figure prominently until the fourth book in the series, "Something Rotten," where they turn out to be instrumental in a high-stakes world cup croquet tournament.
All four books are a hell of a lot of fun, and approach the level of wit and humor of Douglas Adams. Recommended.
Schwab
Y'know, I think you're being a little disingenuous here. From the front page on your own site, we find:
So it sounds to me like, rather than being "killed" by "piracy", you've noticed a change in the market landscape, and are adapting to try and meet the change. In other words, you're responding to your market rather than whining about the way things "should be."
That's the way it's supposed to work, and bravo to you, sir, for having the presence of mind to recognize it, and the courage to act on it. I don't imagine the transition will be at all easy -- navigating uncharted territory rarely is -- but the fact you're willing to give it a go, in my book, puts you ahead of the game.
Best of fortune to you.
Schwab
Schwab
Did the OEMs suddenly lose all their imagination? Or are there not as many "partership" opportunities with media players?
Schwab
No no, dude, it's so obvious:
The Pwn3d News Network.
Schwab
"Yo, b00tbl0ck!"
"What up?"
"My worm made ISN!"
"Whoop-de-shit. Remember that AOL outage last week? Mine. ISN covered it for two days."
"No way!"
"Way. Props on your first ISN troll, dude, but l337 is not you."
Just what we need.
Schwab
Schwab
Since DNG is just another file format, there's nothing to prevent you from transcoding from JPEG to DNG. However, it should be possible to immediately distinguish between a JPEG->DNG file and a "true" DNG file just by looking at them, because of the DCT artifacts.
But your larger question is correct: Posession of a DNG file will prove exactly nothing.
Schwab
You do realize there are tools out there that can completely replace the EXIF block, yes? (Granted, most people wouldn't know how to drive them, but still...)
I wrote an EXIF thumbnail extractor about a year ago. EXIF is just a TIFF-formatted collection of data used to describe the photo. As you might imagine, some cameras get the EXIF data wrong, or leave out bits people consider important, so there are tools available to modify it. There's nothing special about it; if you know TIFF format well enough, you could bang out a valid EXIF header using nothing more than a hex editor.
So no, I wouldn't consider EXIF data to be a reasonable source for corroborating "ownership" claims.
Schwab