So it sounds like the issue is "when is an injunction a fair remedy?"
In a patent case, it is up to the patent holder.
There is no such thing as compulsory license in patents, except for the government. That's the nature of patents - the right to bar all others from use of the patent if the holder wishes. If there is infringement and the patent holder wants an injunction, that's what they get. So, as MercExchange has won twice, presumably they got an injunction twice, since they don't want Ebay to use the process. That Ebay was able to continue using it seems to indicate they got stays of the injunction upon the appeals.
When they lose again, they'll have to pay damages for the continued use is all.
\gloating\ I like to see when the big boys fight legal battles against smaller guys and lose once all is said and done. Refreshes the idea that the law is for everyone after all. \/gloating\
I'd imagine Google has their own internal OS for stand-alone pcs built on Linux. I'd imagine it works well. If they chose to go into a deal where they'd sell it as part of a cheap system, why not if they project it would make money?
It would obviously be costly if Google wanted to fight for full control of the OS market, but what if they only wanted to get that small segment which is ready to abandon MS? You know, make money on something they already have, likely, with little extra effort. I'd say, the thing that would worry Google wouldn't be losing money in a battle against MS, it would be that there would be too little return over the whole project to even bother.
Obviously, it would also anger MS. But if MS came out and actively crushed it, there would be renewed evidence of their monopolistic tendancies, should the feds ever want to notice.
However, I can guarantee you that if their government sat still and did nothing, only to later on have a massive terrorist attack on their hands, there'd be some serious inquiry as to why there had been no systems in place to gather intelligence to prevent such a thing, or some sort of monitoring to catch the culprits.
And that's as it should be. That's still not a valid reason to rob us of our civil rights, be them rights enshrined in the Constitution or rights that were not articulated in the Constitution because at the time of the founding of the U.S. there was no concievable threat to them (i.e. the right to not be tracked without a warrant, etc.).
The world's a dangerous place. I am sure if nothing had been done post-911 and there had been a few more attacks, the chance of falling prey to a terrorist act would still be far lower than that of being in a car accident.
I'm not saying we should do nothing, but I think that alot of what we are doing has more detriments for us than benefits - their saying it is being done in our benefit doesn't placate me.
But I also know that the government does this every time there is a crisis of some kind - goes way back to the Sedition Act of 1798 - so I hold out some hope for us.
While I'm with you I would guess that this would only result in the politicians exempting themselves by making it illegal to do this to them. You know, like how it's illegal to threaten the president of the U.S. but generally not to do so to an ordinary citizen, at least if you can claim it's in jest.
Semi related story - after 911, I had to go to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (patent appeals court) to get a brochure of pictures of the judges for a partner at a big law firm. They made me get a signed letter of request on firm letterhead before giving it to me - for security reasons. Silly - they're public servants after all, we have a right to know who we're paying.
Maybe he's just leading the charge to evolve English into new, more logical form. Where 's means possession whether it follows 'it' or a proper noun.
It's unfortunate that English uses 's for both possession and a contraction for 'is'. Maybe we need two distinguishable apostrophes - one for possession and one for contraction.
Dude, if it wasn't too long ago, you can still sue.
As I would guess that the party you have a problem with is in another state/commonwealth, you need to decide where to sue. Stores often have terms of agreements which attempt to limit disputes to the courts of their choosing, or often, to arbitration. On the Internet, these are usually not binding unless you were forced to click through them in agreement. If the pages you interacted with only had reference to a terms of agreement, with link perhaps, it is likely not binding on you. Just research one or two cases which agree with this point in case you need them when in court.
Small claims courts cost less than $100 to sue. D.C., iirc, costs $30 to file. There will likely be other costs, especially if you use the court to mail the process (see below), but all of it should be recoverable if you win.
One thing that may be important, research the company you dealt with on your state/commonwealth's secretary of state site to determine if they registered as doing business - if so, there should be at least one individual listed as a contact. Check also for the state/commonwealth in which they are located. Include these individuals, if any, in your suit. The idea being, if the person dissolves the company after your suit, you can follow him/her individually without resuing.
Filing is the easy part. Next comes the service of process (giving a copy of the complaint to the party you're suing) which can be difficult. There are generally different ways to do this - (1) by hand to the person sued, (2) by hand to someone at the residence of the person sued, (3) by attaching it to the door of the residence of the person sued, (4) by mail. The rules of the court in which you sued will tell you which ways are possible. You can't generally do it yourself in person, since you're a party. Courts also generally have restrictions on who else can deliver the process, such as they have to live or work in the court's jurisdiction.
Further, the court may require that you attempt service according to a certain heirarchy (first in person, then to residence, then by mail, etc.), but there may be a 'curing statute' such as in VA where service of process, even if not done by following the heirarchy, is ok if the person sued actually got notice. If it turns out that you are suing somebody out of state/commonwealth and require hand service, there are people who do this for a living (and will take pictures of their doing it for proof).
Once you have good service, you can go to trial. If the party you sued is a scammer, he/she won't likely show up, especially if you're in another state/commonwealth. In this case, so long as you have some evidence (e.g. copy of your purchase confirmation and your testimony that the item didn't come), you will win. U.S. courts are very tough on enforcing contracts and a sales agreement is a contract even if there is no writing involved.
When you have a judgement in your state/commonwealth, you then need to get it enforced. If the other person lives elsewhere, you have to sue again there to get the judgement transferred. The good thing is that they can usually no longer dispute anything that occurred in the first suit since they had notice and thus, opportunity to dispute it earlier. You will get a judgement, and can get an order to the sheriff to enforce it.
This would likely be a pain, if your location and the party sued is far apart. One option might be to sell the judgement, such as to a collection firm. You won't get even close to full value, but should be better off than if you hadn't sued.
It would be cool if/.ers would form a network and help each other out in such cases for a cut of the judgement. Really, these scammers operate on the principle that most people will drop the issue as too time-consuming and expensive, and most do. The more people who don't, the more likelihood that read damage is done to the scammers and they may go away.
What about if we find a way to sufficiently model the world and evolution.
It's probably like building running robots. At first, they tried to do it using statically-stable positions. However, running forms are dynamically stable without usually being statically-stable if snapshots are taken.
I'd guess that evolution is also dynamically-stable, in a sense. I.e. you cannot try and establish all the known species at a given time and then infer all the unknown ones - there will be niches that just opened up and others that have something in mid-evolution to fill them. As our efforts advance, though, surely we could begin to get a fairly accurate view of what the fossil record is missing.
Actually, the copyright law allows for statutory damages. That is, in lieu of actual damages, the statute sets forth set damage ranges per work infringed. The RIAA is most certainly suing under statutory damages.
The RIAA can sue for... wait for it (it'll make you sick)... $750 to 30K per song. That's without proving willful (intentional) action. If the RIAA can prove intent, the statutory limit is $150K per song.
That doesn't mean they'll get the maximum, but that's the values given in the US Code. See 17 USC 504.
That's why I think people cave, the possibility is out there that they will lose everything they own.
Outrageous? Absolutely. Thank our past congresscritters and Presidents for that one. Oh, and the likes of Disney and the heirs of Gerschwin, for that matter.
Hmm, he/she had a contract with BB in which BB agreed to honor the manufacturer's warranty. That means that if the monitor died, it would be repaired or replaced with a monitor of equal or better value (I presume, details not given).
BB refused to honor the contract they entered into. Businesses often do this type of thing as they know most people will give up rather than fight, and if the people do fight, the businesses can salvage the situation by simply doing what they were supposed to in the first place.
GP was right, he/she should have sued. It's one way to make businesses not act this way as once a case is filed, the customer usually has the right to court costs above and beyond their damages. It's not much, but it makes the business worse off than if they had just complied in the first place.
My view is that there is a much bigger risk than infection via computers.
The search for SETI is what, sending out signals hoping for an answer? In essence we are jumping up and down saying "come meet us".
I'd say that the greater threat would be of physical invasion of some kind. I know, the physics and astronomy types will point out that it is likely that any recipient will not be able to reach here without 100s of years of travel, but still.
Think Columbus when he was investigating the Caribbean and meeting some American Indians. Suppose he had seen some kind of long-range smoke signals from, say, the Iriqois in NE US. Think he wouldn't have abandoned the Caribbean to seek out the new, more advanced makers of the long-range smoke signals? Whatever Columbus' goals, his followers ended up decimating the Amercian Indians and conquering two whole continents of people.
Even if the first contact was made with us from freindship seeking extraterrestrials, those that follow might not be so benevolent.
I'm not too paranoid about this, I'm not against the search for SETI programs. It just seems to me that we're acting very foolish. My idea would be to have a two-pronged program. (1) Push development of passive listening and other searching capability to look for evidence of others and (2) Push development of ways to camaflage our presence and apparent level of technological development. If it turns out that other life exists and is no threat to us, is so advanced it doesn't care about us, is truly freindly, etc. then it won't matter our precautions. If it turns out that life exists and is not so benevolent, then the precautions will not have been in vain.
This seems only prudent from a military and security standpoint. Honestly, I'm surprised there isn't somewhat of a movement against the search for SETI for this very reason. I guess most people just don't think there is any other life out there.
Something I haven't seen in the comments is discussion of the colors. For me, I liked Mega Blocks for their intersting colors I used to find in Walmart. Light blue, vivid green, orange. Too cool.
Lego is great in quality, but to me, lacking in a lot of variety in colors and block shapes. (The lure of building amazing things with lego, I think, is the inherent difficulty of working totally within the lego block hierarchy - i.e. that many things are so difficult that it becomes a real challange.)
Same thing Ford did with his "they can have any color they want so long as it's black" hurts lego as well. That and their unreasonable expense. I would probably buy more if Lego sold blocks in bulk - like 100 2x4s or the like (they don't do they?).
It will work for a while, but sooner or later, they will hit against someone who will fight it out.
Remember the Russians who were DDOSing companies and extorting money? One guy was using zombie networks to target gambling companies for 100K or less. One guy decided to not pay and hired someone to create a system that could handle the DDOS and filter out the legitimate traffic. They did finally create a system that beat the Russians. One guy finally decided to fight back and the result was a new security company that could do it for all the victims.
I can't imagine a jury or court finding the guy liable for the money spent defending his company against extortionists. It seems it would be valid under the business judgement rule.
It takes 30sec/9 month to make a children, it takes *20 years* to raise a children!
I understand where people like you are coming from, but raising a child can only channel the expression of what's preordained by the DNA. For example, to be a genius requires the genetic predisposition - you can't create it by raising the child, you only can nurture it. Which the GGP post was kind of referring to. Of course, raising is important as you can fail to realize the potential locked in the DNA, or worse, subvert it to a bad expression.
As a Patent Examiner, I talked to another Examiner who rejected an application for a left-handed lightbulb based on a cartoon from the NY Times (I think). In that case, the rejection was because the idea was public and to one of ordinary skill in the art it would have been obvious how to make the left-handed lightbulb.
In this case, Drew Cary had the idea. Provided it predated Nestle's start on the project, it could be prior art.
I guess an Examiner could have said that making coffee beer from the idea on the Carey show was obvious, and that making non-alcoholic beer from the alcoholic beer was obvious, maybe a tenuous rejection could be made. Nestle would easily overcome it if there is any aspect of their process which is not obvious - the basic requirement of a patent anyway.
My point being, patent applications can be rejected as being obvious over prior art which do not specify how to make the invention, provided the argument is valid.
With respect to the Groklaw link, she is pushing a book on linux as an alternative, that there's life after M$.
My story - I know noone who uses Linux, and no place I use computers uses Linux. Nevertheless, hating M$, I have had a long desire to try it out.
Built a computer from parts, but was apprehensive to try Linux, had only dial up (NetZero for free) and so kept putting it off. Had a fire which destroyed the computer. A year or so later, bought more parts and built a new computer. Again with the apprehension, waited a year or two (yeah, I was stupid).
One day, I decided what the hell, used an Ubuntu disk I had gotten in the interim, and booted the computer. It was now running Ubuntu. Since it could also install, I tried that and a half hour later had it installed. It comes with Open Office, so there was a native Word like word processing program.
That's how easy it was - 1/2 hour of very little work, and I had a fully functioning computer with Linux, word processors, etc., the software all for free.
That computer is now the favorite for my whole family, from the kids to the adults.
Seems to me there is a very cost-effective solution to M$ - all people have to do is try it out.
The only reason I see to stay with M$ is if it is necessary for some reason - business depends on software that only runs on M$, etc. For the rest of us (the majority), I should say that M$'s dominion of the market will remain only so long as we are too lazy to try out alternatives.
I had a friend a few years ago from Nigeria, an Igbo. He would say that Nigerian people are the best in Africa for scamming and getting ahead. He was quite proud of it.
At one party, he looked at me and said that with my blue eyes, Nigerian girls would like me. His wife looked at him and said, "They'd wipe his account clean and leave."
That said, I've known other Nigerians who didn't seem to have this nonstop scamming attitude.
Kindof scary for me, the last time I heard from the guy with the wife, he called out of the blue, maybe a year or more after I had previously heard from him. He wanted me to cosign on a car loan so he could get a better deal. Seems all his Nigerian friends and other black friends (some lawyers, some engineers, all with money likely) wouldn't put themselves out for him. Since he had by and large been a good friend I consented. After the deal later didn't go through, he never called in followup to thank me or anything. While I am sure he is still in the area and working, I think I really lucked out. I take it as an affirmation that the old adage to not let personal issues cloud business decisions is a good idea.
I, for example, use the phone numbers of others I know (people I don't really like). Just tell the cashier that you forgot your card and want to enter your number. Then try one (that you know from beforehand). You can always say you are buying stuff for roommates and you know one of them has a card, so you can try 2 or 3 if the first doesn't work. If none of your numbers work, say you're not paying the full price since you have a card - especially after the cashier has rung everything up she or he is unlikely to negate that and will use the card they keep on hand.
Never had that happen to me though, the first number I used (a disagreeable neighbor) worked, and that's what I continue to use even though the neighbor has long moved away.
Otherwise, you can trade cards with people you know, as a less beneficial alternative.
No, it's more like the US developed a system to heat, light, etc. a house, so the world built a communal house spanning land owned by each country. Since the US was the first to implement the technology, it has controlled who gets what account in the system. Now, the other countries want to govern who gets what account in their own countries, even if account names overlap with those of other countries.
Um, I don't see what the US can do if other countries want to do this. Sure, it can cut the other countries off, but in the short and long run, it will be the US who suffers more, not the rest of the world.
Aren't you depriving the Artist/Label/RIAA of Money?
Stealing money is still theft, right?
While some who infringe songs would buy them otherwise, in most cases, I doubt it. Think of those who have 1000s of songs. Think they'd have bought all of those songs otherwise? Not likely. And surely not likely for the younger ones.
Remember, these people downloaded just what they wanted. Most people I know grew weary of putting out 16.99 or 17.99 for a CD just for the hit song which 6 months later they didn't like.
So I'd bet, if there was 100% piracy prevention, many of the songs that would have been traded would not be bought.
That said, I expect there are a lot of sales of CDs to people who stumbled upon the groups through sampling from downloaded songs.
Honestly, if 100% piracy prevention came into existance, I bet the increase in sales of top40 fluff and classics would be more than offset by the loss of sales of less known bands whose work would no longer be shared and experimented with.
Then again, I hang around people who think for themselves with regards to what they like as far as music goes, as well as as far as politics goes. Judging by them, I could have expected Bush to lose last election by a landslide. Apparently, I don't run in a representative cross-section of US society.
Police get positive signal from dog, indicating drugs, and they search your car. They find a body inside or something else which is evidence to remove you from society for a long time.
Let's say (as impossible as it likely is) that you can prove, without a doubt, that there was not one molecule in or on your car that could have indicated to the dog that you had drugs, and that the area where your car was stopped at the time didn't likewise have any such molecules. I.e. I'm saying that you can prove scientifically, without a doubt, that the dog malfunctioned - gave a false positive.
I'd guess, athough I'm not sure, the evidence would be completely admissible in court since the police had probable cause at the time. I know for example that evidence seized on an invalid warrent is admissible in court if the police didn't know the warrant was invalid.
We all know that mechanical devices can be gamed. In this case, the device would have to be calibrated. The police could just set the threshold very low, allowing false positives. Whee! Instant probable cause for any situation.
In another discussion a while back, someoone posted a link to a guy who rails against MADD and breathalizers (however you spell it) - as it goes, scotus has upheld that police are under no duty to preserve breath samples for later testing by the defense, although this would be easy to do. Malfunctioning or miscalibrated breathalizer? Too bad, your conviction stands. I'm sure a similar analysis would apply to a miscalibrated enose.
All I can say is thank God for Roosevelt 2. Thanks to him, Bush 2 is over after 2008.
Man, I don't understand the US government. Democracy my ass. I don't remember voting on any referendum to allow the government to censor pornography.
I know, I know, we get to vote on our representatives and the President, and this somehow means that we must suffer what they put into law. The funny thing about pornography is, in my experience it is the bosses who often consume more of it than the lower workers. Am I right IT guys? And I am sure the federal government workers such as Congress are even more guilty. I've read how the congressmen going to Viet Nam for tours back when were more interested in getting poontang and buying black market antiquities than in investigating the war effort.
Here on the one side (detriments) we have a waste of taxpayer money, oppression of pornography, and a freedom of speech right that is more narrow than it was yesterday. On the other side we have, what, more uptight citizens? No, that goes with the first side. What again exactly is the benefit of this oppression?
It is often the more you oppress something, the more people are interested in it. So I guess the benefit we will get is that more people may become interested in this stuff. And likely everyone will all be more uptight about the whole issue.
Good for China. Not every culture wants to live under the same government or with the same laws. Thus we can't expect every country to act the same as us or to do our bidding.
Apparently the Chinese want or will tolerate the repressive form of government they have. It's not for us to judge them or force them to change. If they want change, it is up to them to instigate it. We did it for ourselves in the US, if they want to, they will do it in China.
If any US companies don't like what they have to tolerate to do business there, then they don't have to do business there. Quite simple really.
Slashdot Mirror
In a patent case, it is up to the patent holder.
There is no such thing as compulsory license in patents, except for the government. That's the nature of patents - the right to bar all others from use of the patent if the holder wishes. If there is infringement and the patent holder wants an injunction, that's what they get. So, as MercExchange has won twice, presumably they got an injunction twice, since they don't want Ebay to use the process. That Ebay was able to continue using it seems to indicate they got stays of the injunction upon the appeals.
When they lose again, they'll have to pay damages for the continued use is all.
\gloating\ I like to see when the big boys fight legal battles against smaller guys and lose once all is said and done. Refreshes the idea that the law is for everyone after all. \/gloating\
I'd imagine Google has their own internal OS for stand-alone pcs built on Linux. I'd imagine it works well. If they chose to go into a deal where they'd sell it as part of a cheap system, why not if they project it would make money?
It would obviously be costly if Google wanted to fight for full control of the OS market, but what if they only wanted to get that small segment which is ready to abandon MS? You know, make money on something they already have, likely, with little extra effort. I'd say, the thing that would worry Google wouldn't be losing money in a battle against MS, it would be that there would be too little return over the whole project to even bother.
Obviously, it would also anger MS. But if MS came out and actively crushed it, there would be renewed evidence of their monopolistic tendancies, should the feds ever want to notice.
Would be fun to watch though.
And that's as it should be. That's still not a valid reason to rob us of our civil rights, be them rights enshrined in the Constitution or rights that were not articulated in the Constitution because at the time of the founding of the U.S. there was no concievable threat to them (i.e. the right to not be tracked without a warrant, etc.).
The world's a dangerous place. I am sure if nothing had been done post-911 and there had been a few more attacks, the chance of falling prey to a terrorist act would still be far lower than that of being in a car accident.
I'm not saying we should do nothing, but I think that alot of what we are doing has more detriments for us than benefits - their saying it is being done in our benefit doesn't placate me.
But I also know that the government does this every time there is a crisis of some kind - goes way back to the Sedition Act of 1798 - so I hold out some hope for us.
Semi related story - after 911, I had to go to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (patent appeals court) to get a brochure of pictures of the judges for a partner at a big law firm. They made me get a signed letter of request on firm letterhead before giving it to me - for security reasons. Silly - they're public servants after all, we have a right to know who we're paying.
Pretty devastating image, actually.
Maybe FARK can have a photoshop contest on this.
It's unfortunate that English uses 's for both possession and a contraction for 'is'. Maybe we need two distinguishable apostrophes - one for possession and one for contraction.
I'd call it theft of energy, actually.
But all taxes are theft albeit lawful. So we are in agreement.
As I would guess that the party you have a problem with is in another state/commonwealth, you need to decide where to sue. Stores often have terms of agreements which attempt to limit disputes to the courts of their choosing, or often, to arbitration. On the Internet, these are usually not binding unless you were forced to click through them in agreement. If the pages you interacted with only had reference to a terms of agreement, with link perhaps, it is likely not binding on you. Just research one or two cases which agree with this point in case you need them when in court.
Small claims courts cost less than $100 to sue. D.C., iirc, costs $30 to file. There will likely be other costs, especially if you use the court to mail the process (see below), but all of it should be recoverable if you win.
One thing that may be important, research the company you dealt with on your state/commonwealth's secretary of state site to determine if they registered as doing business - if so, there should be at least one individual listed as a contact. Check also for the state/commonwealth in which they are located. Include these individuals, if any, in your suit. The idea being, if the person dissolves the company after your suit, you can follow him/her individually without resuing.
Filing is the easy part. Next comes the service of process (giving a copy of the complaint to the party you're suing) which can be difficult. There are generally different ways to do this - (1) by hand to the person sued, (2) by hand to someone at the residence of the person sued, (3) by attaching it to the door of the residence of the person sued, (4) by mail. The rules of the court in which you sued will tell you which ways are possible. You can't generally do it yourself in person, since you're a party. Courts also generally have restrictions on who else can deliver the process, such as they have to live or work in the court's jurisdiction.
Further, the court may require that you attempt service according to a certain heirarchy (first in person, then to residence, then by mail, etc.), but there may be a 'curing statute' such as in VA where service of process, even if not done by following the heirarchy, is ok if the person sued actually got notice. If it turns out that you are suing somebody out of state/commonwealth and require hand service, there are people who do this for a living (and will take pictures of their doing it for proof).
Once you have good service, you can go to trial. If the party you sued is a scammer, he/she won't likely show up, especially if you're in another state/commonwealth. In this case, so long as you have some evidence (e.g. copy of your purchase confirmation and your testimony that the item didn't come), you will win. U.S. courts are very tough on enforcing contracts and a sales agreement is a contract even if there is no writing involved.
When you have a judgement in your state/commonwealth, you then need to get it enforced. If the other person lives elsewhere, you have to sue again there to get the judgement transferred. The good thing is that they can usually no longer dispute anything that occurred in the first suit since they had notice and thus, opportunity to dispute it earlier. You will get a judgement, and can get an order to the sheriff to enforce it.
This would likely be a pain, if your location and the party sued is far apart. One option might be to sell the judgement, such as to a collection firm. You won't get even close to full value, but should be better off than if you hadn't sued.
It would be cool if /.ers would form a network and help each other out in such cases for a cut of the judgement. Really, these scammers operate on the principle that most people will drop the issue as too time-consuming and expensive, and most do. The more people who don't, the more likelihood that read damage is done to the scammers and they may go away.
I am not a
It's probably like building running robots. At first, they tried to do it using statically-stable positions. However, running forms are dynamically stable without usually being statically-stable if snapshots are taken.
I'd guess that evolution is also dynamically-stable, in a sense. I.e. you cannot try and establish all the known species at a given time and then infer all the unknown ones - there will be niches that just opened up and others that have something in mid-evolution to fill them. As our efforts advance, though, surely we could begin to get a fairly accurate view of what the fossil record is missing.
The RIAA can sue for ... wait for it (it'll make you sick) ... $750 to 30K per song. That's without proving willful (intentional) action. If the RIAA can prove intent, the statutory limit is $150K per song.
That doesn't mean they'll get the maximum, but that's the values given in the US Code. See 17 USC 504.
That's why I think people cave, the possibility is out there that they will lose everything they own.
Outrageous? Absolutely. Thank our past congresscritters and Presidents for that one. Oh, and the likes of Disney and the heirs of Gerschwin, for that matter.
BB refused to honor the contract they entered into. Businesses often do this type of thing as they know most people will give up rather than fight, and if the people do fight, the businesses can salvage the situation by simply doing what they were supposed to in the first place.
GP was right, he/she should have sued. It's one way to make businesses not act this way as once a case is filed, the customer usually has the right to court costs above and beyond their damages. It's not much, but it makes the business worse off than if they had just complied in the first place.
The search for SETI is what, sending out signals hoping for an answer? In essence we are jumping up and down saying "come meet us".
I'd say that the greater threat would be of physical invasion of some kind. I know, the physics and astronomy types will point out that it is likely that any recipient will not be able to reach here without 100s of years of travel, but still.
Think Columbus when he was investigating the Caribbean and meeting some American Indians. Suppose he had seen some kind of long-range smoke signals from, say, the Iriqois in NE US. Think he wouldn't have abandoned the Caribbean to seek out the new, more advanced makers of the long-range smoke signals? Whatever Columbus' goals, his followers ended up decimating the Amercian Indians and conquering two whole continents of people.
Even if the first contact was made with us from freindship seeking extraterrestrials, those that follow might not be so benevolent.
I'm not too paranoid about this, I'm not against the search for SETI programs. It just seems to me that we're acting very foolish. My idea would be to have a two-pronged program. (1) Push development of passive listening and other searching capability to look for evidence of others and (2) Push development of ways to camaflage our presence and apparent level of technological development. If it turns out that other life exists and is no threat to us, is so advanced it doesn't care about us, is truly freindly, etc. then it won't matter our precautions. If it turns out that life exists and is not so benevolent, then the precautions will not have been in vain.
This seems only prudent from a military and security standpoint. Honestly, I'm surprised there isn't somewhat of a movement against the search for SETI for this very reason. I guess most people just don't think there is any other life out there.
Lego is great in quality, but to me, lacking in a lot of variety in colors and block shapes. (The lure of building amazing things with lego, I think, is the inherent difficulty of working totally within the lego block hierarchy - i.e. that many things are so difficult that it becomes a real challange.)
Same thing Ford did with his "they can have any color they want so long as it's black" hurts lego as well. That and their unreasonable expense. I would probably buy more if Lego sold blocks in bulk - like 100 2x4s or the like (they don't do they?).
Remember the Russians who were DDOSing companies and extorting money? One guy was using zombie networks to target gambling companies for 100K or less. One guy decided to not pay and hired someone to create a system that could handle the DDOS and filter out the legitimate traffic. They did finally create a system that beat the Russians. One guy finally decided to fight back and the result was a new security company that could do it for all the victims.
I can't imagine a jury or court finding the guy liable for the money spent defending his company against extortionists. It seems it would be valid under the business judgement rule.
I understand where people like you are coming from, but raising a child can only channel the expression of what's preordained by the DNA. For example, to be a genius requires the genetic predisposition - you can't create it by raising the child, you only can nurture it. Which the GGP post was kind of referring to. Of course, raising is important as you can fail to realize the potential locked in the DNA, or worse, subvert it to a bad expression.
In this case, Drew Cary had the idea. Provided it predated Nestle's start on the project, it could be prior art.
I guess an Examiner could have said that making coffee beer from the idea on the Carey show was obvious, and that making non-alcoholic beer from the alcoholic beer was obvious, maybe a tenuous rejection could be made. Nestle would easily overcome it if there is any aspect of their process which is not obvious - the basic requirement of a patent anyway.
My point being, patent applications can be rejected as being obvious over prior art which do not specify how to make the invention, provided the argument is valid.
My story - I know noone who uses Linux, and no place I use computers uses Linux. Nevertheless, hating M$, I have had a long desire to try it out.
Built a computer from parts, but was apprehensive to try Linux, had only dial up (NetZero for free) and so kept putting it off. Had a fire which destroyed the computer. A year or so later, bought more parts and built a new computer. Again with the apprehension, waited a year or two (yeah, I was stupid).
One day, I decided what the hell, used an Ubuntu disk I had gotten in the interim, and booted the computer. It was now running Ubuntu. Since it could also install, I tried that and a half hour later had it installed. It comes with Open Office, so there was a native Word like word processing program.
That's how easy it was - 1/2 hour of very little work, and I had a fully functioning computer with Linux, word processors, etc., the software all for free.
That computer is now the favorite for my whole family, from the kids to the adults.
Seems to me there is a very cost-effective solution to M$ - all people have to do is try it out.
The only reason I see to stay with M$ is if it is necessary for some reason - business depends on software that only runs on M$, etc. For the rest of us (the majority), I should say that M$'s dominion of the market will remain only so long as we are too lazy to try out alternatives.
At one party, he looked at me and said that with my blue eyes, Nigerian girls would like me. His wife looked at him and said, "They'd wipe his account clean and leave."
That said, I've known other Nigerians who didn't seem to have this nonstop scamming attitude.
Kindof scary for me, the last time I heard from the guy with the wife, he called out of the blue, maybe a year or more after I had previously heard from him. He wanted me to cosign on a car loan so he could get a better deal. Seems all his Nigerian friends and other black friends (some lawyers, some engineers, all with money likely) wouldn't put themselves out for him. Since he had by and large been a good friend I consented. After the deal later didn't go through, he never called in followup to thank me or anything. While I am sure he is still in the area and working, I think I really lucked out. I take it as an affirmation that the old adage to not let personal issues cloud business decisions is a good idea.
Just wanted to add that in response to media attention to the Bork episode, we did get the Video Privacy Protection Act.
So media attention can help, at least when there is high-profile abuse.
I, for example, use the phone numbers of others I know (people I don't really like). Just tell the cashier that you forgot your card and want to enter your number. Then try one (that you know from beforehand). You can always say you are buying stuff for roommates and you know one of them has a card, so you can try 2 or 3 if the first doesn't work. If none of your numbers work, say you're not paying the full price since you have a card - especially after the cashier has rung everything up she or he is unlikely to negate that and will use the card they keep on hand.
Never had that happen to me though, the first number I used (a disagreeable neighbor) worked, and that's what I continue to use even though the neighbor has long moved away.
Otherwise, you can trade cards with people you know, as a less beneficial alternative.
No, it's more like the US developed a system to heat, light, etc. a house, so the world built a communal house spanning land owned by each country. Since the US was the first to implement the technology, it has controlled who gets what account in the system. Now, the other countries want to govern who gets what account in their own countries, even if account names overlap with those of other countries. Um, I don't see what the US can do if other countries want to do this. Sure, it can cut the other countries off, but in the short and long run, it will be the US who suffers more, not the rest of the world.
Stealing money is still theft, right?
While some who infringe songs would buy them otherwise, in most cases, I doubt it. Think of those who have 1000s of songs. Think they'd have bought all of those songs otherwise? Not likely. And surely not likely for the younger ones.
Remember, these people downloaded just what they wanted. Most people I know grew weary of putting out 16.99 or 17.99 for a CD just for the hit song which 6 months later they didn't like.
So I'd bet, if there was 100% piracy prevention, many of the songs that would have been traded would not be bought.
That said, I expect there are a lot of sales of CDs to people who stumbled upon the groups through sampling from downloaded songs.
Honestly, if 100% piracy prevention came into existance, I bet the increase in sales of top40 fluff and classics would be more than offset by the loss of sales of less known bands whose work would no longer be shared and experimented with.
Then again, I hang around people who think for themselves with regards to what they like as far as music goes, as well as as far as politics goes. Judging by them, I could have expected Bush to lose last election by a landslide. Apparently, I don't run in a representative cross-section of US society.
Police get positive signal from dog, indicating drugs, and they search your car. They find a body inside or something else which is evidence to remove you from society for a long time.
Let's say (as impossible as it likely is) that you can prove, without a doubt, that there was not one molecule in or on your car that could have indicated to the dog that you had drugs, and that the area where your car was stopped at the time didn't likewise have any such molecules. I.e. I'm saying that you can prove scientifically, without a doubt, that the dog malfunctioned - gave a false positive.
I'd guess, athough I'm not sure, the evidence would be completely admissible in court since the police had probable cause at the time. I know for example that evidence seized on an invalid warrent is admissible in court if the police didn't know the warrant was invalid.
We all know that mechanical devices can be gamed. In this case, the device would have to be calibrated. The police could just set the threshold very low, allowing false positives. Whee! Instant probable cause for any situation.
In another discussion a while back, someoone posted a link to a guy who rails against MADD and breathalizers (however you spell it) - as it goes, scotus has upheld that police are under no duty to preserve breath samples for later testing by the defense, although this would be easy to do. Malfunctioning or miscalibrated breathalizer? Too bad, your conviction stands. I'm sure a similar analysis would apply to a miscalibrated enose.
Man, I don't understand the US government. Democracy my ass. I don't remember voting on any referendum to allow the government to censor pornography.
I know, I know, we get to vote on our representatives and the President, and this somehow means that we must suffer what they put into law. The funny thing about pornography is, in my experience it is the bosses who often consume more of it than the lower workers. Am I right IT guys? And I am sure the federal government workers such as Congress are even more guilty. I've read how the congressmen going to Viet Nam for tours back when were more interested in getting poontang and buying black market antiquities than in investigating the war effort.
Here on the one side (detriments) we have a waste of taxpayer money, oppression of pornography, and a freedom of speech right that is more narrow than it was yesterday. On the other side we have, what, more uptight citizens? No, that goes with the first side. What again exactly is the benefit of this oppression?
It is often the more you oppress something, the more people are interested in it. So I guess the benefit we will get is that more people may become interested in this stuff. And likely everyone will all be more uptight about the whole issue.
Good for China. Not every culture wants to live under the same government or with the same laws. Thus we can't expect every country to act the same as us or to do our bidding.
Apparently the Chinese want or will tolerate the repressive form of government they have. It's not for us to judge them or force them to change. If they want change, it is up to them to instigate it. We did it for ourselves in the US, if they want to, they will do it in China.
If any US companies don't like what they have to tolerate to do business there, then they don't have to do business there. Quite simple really.