It depends on the triggers in question. Trigger warnings about rapes and such - yes, they're a good thing. Trigger warnings about things like mentioning slavery, because supposedly someone is "forced to relive the suffering of their ancestors" and is "traumatized" by it, are bullshit.
Why is that bullshit? Not that I think that situation has ever actually happened, but you don't believe in educating people? You think kids should sign up for a class and not be given a syllabus, and have no idea what they're going to learn? Why is it 'bullshit' to give people more information?
In many cases, those trigger warnings are also implicit. In a sense that if you're going to go to a history class, then, yeah, you can be expected to deal with historical topics such as slavery or treating women as property - this shouldn't require a trigger warning.
My music history class never touched on either of those. Perhaps not every history class is the same, and people should know in advance what the class will cover?
Similarly, if you're going to a stand-up comedy, you can expect to hear jokes involving ethnic stereotypes and gender roles, for example - and this shouldn't require a trigger warning, either.
Not that it has. Cleese was complaining about colleges, not stand-up comedy shows. Which is like a college professor complaining about stand-up shows. Maybe they should stick to worrying about their own jobs?
Either way, college kids who want their university to shut down an event because they dislike an invited guest is a situation where we can assume that they know what they expect to hear (and be offended by) in advance. If they don't actually know but still want to shut it down because they don't like the person specifically, then it's pure ad hominem on their part, and should be dismissed with prejudice without wasting any time on it.
And they have been, and what's your point? Cleese was saying that they shouldn't even be allowed to ask for it to be shut down, because the very idea of shutting things down is so offensive to him that he needs a blanket and nice cup of tea. He's asking for them to be censored because they asked for other events to be censored. How about just saying "no, you can hold your own event?" Why does everyone, on both sides immediately jump to "we cannot allow them to speak"?
You know what's an easy way to avoid "triggering" and offensive terms? Don't go to stand-up comedy. Especially when you know in advance that the comic in question is offensive to you.
Ah, so we're in agreement that people should be informed in advance of whatever triggering or offensive things may occur, and if they can't deal, they can bugger off? In other words, trigger warnings are good things?
So people on college campuses are asking for things like trigger warnings and avoiding offensive terms, and the response is to get incensed about "censorship" and say that those people shouldn't be allowed to ask for those things?
For example, from TFA:
"[Psychiatrist Robin Skynner] said: 'If people can't control their own emotions, then they have to start trying to control other people's behavior,'" Cleese said. "And when you're around super-sensitive people, you cannot relax and be spontaneous because you have no idea what's going to upset them next."
So Cleese is essentially saying he's super-sensitive about super-sensitive people since he can't relax around them, and he wants them silenced so he can feel better. I thought the Brits were supposed to be masters of irony.
Please, everybody here, take an active stance and post that video on your twitter and/or facebook accounts. Let the feminists/Islamists know that there censorship efforts are counter productive.
(i) No, I'm not watching some half hour video of someone talking. I can read faster than he can talk. Give me a transcript if you want your ideas spread.
(ii) What's a "feminist/Islamist"? That's like saying "atheist/Evangelical".
And as far as his comments about black-body radiation from such a structure, it doesn't seem terribly unreasonable for a civilization capable of such engineering such a megastructure in the first place, to have figured out how to convert heat energy into something more usable/consumable.
I think the easiest explanation for that comes from the premise of the Dyson Sphere itself - you're building the thing because you want to capture the solar output energy, so simply putting an optical shell around it and having it radiate that energy in IR doesn't actually help you. Obviously, you're using solar panels and/or mirrors to capture the energy and then retransmitting it to your preferred processing site. Maybe you've got bunches of microwave transmitters on the surface beaming high power (but narrow and not visible from Earth) rays to orbiting factories that are running particle accelerators to make antimatter for your spaceships. Maybe they're even beaming it out beyond that solar system, but to another one that's not in line with the Earth.
The "sun generates X energy, so a Dyson Sphere should radiate X energy as IR" incorrectly assumes that you build the sphere for funsies and never attempt to use that energy.
There's another possibility that's just as far out, and would explain the missing IR.
It's a traffic hub for small FTL ships.
While an interesting idea, you'd have the same problem as the comets - half a million "small" FTL ships that are 200 kilometers wide, except that's a huge-ass ship, so you're really talking about many billions of reasonably sized ships. It takes a lot of such ships to block an appreciable amount of the solar output.
So instead let's just not have safety devices because they might fail.
It's called a gun lock... every responsible owner has one for each gun or rifle they have. Gun lockers/safes are good options, too.
One of the major points in the Supreme Court's decision in DC v. Heller was over trigger-locks - Heller, the allegedly "responsible gun owner" didn't want to use a trigger lock, which DC required. SCOTUS held by a narrow majority that the requirement was unconstitutional because it made it "impossible" to use the gun for self-defense.
Yeah you're wrong on every point. That means you're trying.
... says the guy who cherry-picked and only responded to a few points here and there. You're conceding that I'm right on all the other ones, yes? For example, did you follow that link to Google Patents and see all of the thousands and thousands of issued European software patents? Or are you still a "denier==terrorist" per your signature?
>>that means that the only way to really protect your business software.
Yeah, you protect your business by providing excellent software which is itself a natural barrier to entrance.
I notice you quoted me out of context and even modified the quote. Let's see the whole thing:
... that means that the only way to really protect your business software, other than patents, is to require proprietary formats that aren't interoperable. And that's bad for consumers.
You completely disregarded the entire point about proprietary formats, which are bad for consumers. It's almost like you don't actually care about the public... a funny position for someone allegedly arguing against giant corporations.
If you look at the world of IDEs, people have very strong preferences for one over the other. There are no software patents involved protecting anyone. In fact, even giving away the stuff for free is NOT enough to make enough people switch from IntelliJ to Eclipse, for example, to put IntelliJ out of business. All with no software patents.
And what do those have? Proprietary formats! Just like I said, and you excised from my quote. Most people recognize that those are bad, and would prefer to freely be able to port their work between competing products.
That's a figure from the patent, it's not what the patent covers. The only part of the patent that has legal weight are the claims
The information provided in the drawings is exactly isomorphic tot he information provided in the claims. Patent lawyers know people have a hard time reading claims (by design.. patent language is a product of a priesthood which self-consciously seeks to protect itself by bartering in obscuritanism ) and like to make this argument also. If you read the claims and look at the diagrams, they are describing the same set of affairs, encryption keys and all.
Translation: "You're right, Theaetetus. I was wrong when I claimed they were patenting a flow chart. They're actually patenting an implementation recited by the claims, and I don't know how to read those, so I was confused and pointed to the block diagram instead."
No problem, and I'm happy to help you learn to read patent claims. They're actually not confusing at all, if you take your time. Honestly, the only words you may need to learn are "comprising" and "consisting".
You're just undermining your position by revealing that a humdrum and natural application of encryption keys (what else are they for except exchanging information securely over a public network) is now off limits to everyone but Dropbox.
Nope, I'm tearing apart your allegation that the patent prevents all file-sharing. You've now moved those goalposts to "a natural application of encryption keys" which certainly wasn't anywhere in your original post. Don't worry, we can all see the holes in the turf from where they used to be and will avoid tripping over them.
Maybe you'll eventually even move the goalposts to what the patent actually covers, rather than claiming it covers the world... Oh, wait:
To wit: there is no set of classes, no interaction between any objects and no alternative architecture of any kind which is permitted by this patent.
You're now claiming this patent covers any "interaction between objects".
Oooookay. Well, give you credit for doubling down. Not sure if it's going to actually convince anyone, though.
Yeah, otherwise known as a "software patent". It's worth clarifying what a software patent is not, the better to understand what it is and why it's so pernicious and why they're banned (yes, they are) in the EU and pretty much everywhere else in the world except AU. and JP.
They're also banned in the US - there are no patents on pure software per se, which is the same rule used by the EU and everywhere else (including the AU and JP). Instead, this is a patent on a method of using an electronic device; a product that includes executable code; and a computer system including a processor, memory, and program module, and includes various additional limitations that apparently aren't taught or suggested by the prior art.
Alternately, look at this and then come tell us again how software patents are banned in the EU.
Software patents are not patents on specific ways for causing a machine to perform a useful function. That type of IP is the IP we call "copyright". Copyright does prevent your code, your (virtual) machine, from being ripped off.
Copyright protects only that specific code. Rewrite the code, and it's not copyright infringement. TinyTower doesn't infringe the copyright of DreamHeights. Farmville doesn't infringe the copyright of FarmTown. Open Office doesn't infringe the copyright of Microsoft Office.
Copyright is useful when someone wants that specific item: we want to see the latest Avengers movie, not some Bollywood "Revengers" knock-off (caveat: some of us want to see that). We want the latest Taylor Swift album, not Sailor Tift's album (caveat: some of us want neither). It's why movies and books and music are pirated - we want those exact items.
But that doesn't apply to most software. In fact, copyright is generally useless for software, and particularly for business software: your average office worker doesn't care if they're using Numbers or Excel or Google Sheets, as long as the functionality is there and they're interoperable... and that means that the only way to really protect your business software, other than patents, is to require proprietary formats that aren't interoperable. And that's bad for consumers.
You have to find a relatively original way to achieve the same effect, but the *idea* of what you're doing is not patentable. Copyright naturally delivers all that to computer IP.
As noted above, TinyTower/DreamHeights; Farmville/FarmTown; MS Word/Writer; Excel/Calc; etc., etc. Those all use the same exact ways to achieve the same effect, but because they don't actually involve copied code or graphics, they're not copyright infringements.
Software patents are patents on all ways to cause a machine to perform a generally describable function. It's not the specific implementation performing the useful function that is being protected- it's the ability to achieve the same ends in any way whatsoever.
Not at all - "software patents", like any patents, cover a specific implementation. In fact, claiming just the result - "the ends" - is unpatentable.
In this case, the "ends" are sharing files. You claim that the patent covers every way to share files, right? Like "copying a file to disk and giving it to a friend"? Well, let's see... Nope. The word "disk" only shows up once in the specification and nowhere in the claims. Nor do the claims bear any relation to copying a file to a disk and sharing it. You couldn't possibly infringe the patent by copying a file to a disk and giving it to a friend, and therefore, no, the patent doesn't cover that.
It seems like you don't actually understand what a patent is, or what parts of it are important. For example:
So like the RIM patent debacle, this patent covers things unbelievably
Jeffrey Dixon, of HINSHAW Law, do you feel proud now of your prowess, and your 'management' of eight assistants? You are really powerful. I should fear you. Boo-gah boo-gah!.
I know your boss, personally. So, really just shut the f*ck up about being a gigantic patent stud, when all you really do is put into text the ideas of actual inventors, geniuses, professors, etc.
Feel proud that you are able to reduce descriptions of brilliant ideas into legalese. That is a monkey-talent that not every person can learn.
As for having brilliant ideas. . . Well, you have none; otherwise you would be an inventor/scientist/etc. — You are simply a scribe – one who serves at the leisure of your intellectual superiors.
Yes, I see you looked me up on LinkedIn. You deserve a medal for that. Or at least a certificate!
Lol, nope. Wrong guy. Sorry, Mr. Dixon, for drawing the ire of Sir Holo of Slashdot, Lord of the Inept Googling.
I will likely be initiating an interference proceeding.
Oh well, back to my 30 patents, of which a family of 20 is being heavily and overtly infringed.
Well, far be it from me to recommend against entering into a proceeding that could cost anywhere between $20k-$200k, without a guarantee of getting a patent at the end of it. Good luck to you. I'll go back to the 3000 patents on my docket and the 8 associates I oversee.
A copyright or patent for a year is little incentive for new inventions, and a forever patent or copyright provides no return for society in return for that protection.
Where is the optimum? I believe it is 14 years.
The last Star Trek movie came out a year and a half ago, and the next one is due out in 7 months. I think they're well within your optimum range to be protecting their IP.
The Patent application (publication) is three pages in total. That is incredibly short.
It also has (for now) only one claim, not a list of claims of various scope.
It also lacks a list Examples or Embodiments, which are the structure that support a Patent when contested or claimed in Court.
This is a design patent. It only has one claim because design patents are only allowed to have one claim. It is incredibly short because only the figures matter, and the description is mostly irrelevant. There aren't multiple embodiments, because the embodiment shown in the figures is the only embodiment claimed, by definition.
Last, the Figure shown on the front page looks very, very Mac-like. As if they are trying to get Patent coverage for a Design which already exist(ed) on the drawing boards of a competing firm.
Note that this was filed in 2006 or 2007 (I won't waste the seconds to check). Mac OS X Finder does indeed feature this exact type of magnification slider in the bottom-right of any Finder window, although I forget when the element was introduced.
I'm on a Mac right now and no, there is not "this exact type of magnification slider". There's this slider (from the last version - on the current, the central 'knob' is solid and flat), but it lacks the plus and minus at either end, and lacks the prominent trapezoidal arrow 'knob' in the patent.
While it is a "slider", it is not "this exact type of magnification slider" as you claimed, and would not infringe a design patent. This likely goes back to your confusion over design patents and utility patents - while it is a slider serving the same function or utility, such a functional feature is public domain and has been for decades, if not centuries. It is not what is claimed by this design patent.
(Note that the AIA did not go into effect until January 2014, making this stupid patent application part of the 'first-to-invent' era.)
And that's irrelevant. All the first-to-invent regime changed was interference proceedings, where two inventors filed applications on the exact same invention simultaneously. Out of half a million applications filed annually, there were 20 interference proceedings, and they were tremendously expensive and different from the procedures every other country in the world. It did not magically make prior art not applicable or existent, as some people who spout off about patents without actually knowing what they're talking about claim.
/I am a patent attorney, although I do not work for either Microsoft or Corel (or Apple, for that matter)
"Be it known that I, AUGUESTE BARTHOLDI, of Paris, in the Republic of France, have originated and produced a Design of a Monumental Statue, representing 'Liberty enlightening the world....'
The statue is that of a female figure standing erect upon a pedestal or block, the body being thrown slightly over to the left, so as to gravitate upon the left leg, the whole figure being thus in equilibrium, and symmetrically arranged with respect to a perpendicular line or axis passing through the ead and left foot... The right arm is thrown up and stretched out, with a flamboyant torch grasped in the hand.... The head, with its classical, yet severe and calm. features, is surmounted by a crown or diadem, from which radiate divergingly seven rays, tapering from'the crown, and representing a halo."
That protected Bartholdi against anyone making copies of the Statue of Liberty for fourteen years.
Not quite - that's (part of) the description, which has no legal weight on its own but is merely to be used in interpreting the patent claim. There's also a sketch of the Statue of Liberty illustrating the description. Your last sentence is correct - it protects against anyone making exact copies of the Statue of Liberty, but doesn't protect against other statues of Liberty, such as, for example, this one.
You're confused because you think that all patents are utility patents. Design patents aren't like that. In fact, they are things where nobody would reinvent them independently, because they serve no functional purpose and are purely ornamental. Even something as simple as this is quite unlikely to be copied so exactly that it would violate the design patent.
So why get the design patent? So that somebody can't intentionally spoof your design (legally) to trick users into thinking it's your product. It's branding. It's a lot like a trademark, but it's part of the product rather than a label on top of it.
Yep, and in this case, Corel Write included a specific "look like Microsoft Word" mode, ostensibly to be easier for people switching. It replaces the toolbars with MS-style ribbons, uses the slider, even uses the odd expanding style icons that MS has. The complaint is linked in the EFF article and includes comparison pictures, and this is pretty egregious copying of MS' look and feel.
Then why is there such a thing as design patents at all?
I mean, ever single time they've been explained to me, they seem much better served by copyright. Why do they get a patent instead of a copyright that's likely to last [retroactively applied ever increasing amounts of time]?
Copyright only protects you if your competitor actually copies your design - as in, buys one of your products, looks at the feature, and makes an exact copy of it. If they happen to come up with it on their own, it's not copyright infringement, even if it's identical. If you were a hermit in a hut in the woods and you type out Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone from your own imagination, it's not copyright infringement, even if every single word is the same. So, copyright infringement requires proof of access, proof of copying, etc. If the other side says "no, our designers are locked in a closet and never saw your product," you have to prove they weren't. So that makes it really tough in instances like this to prove copyright infringement, so they're better served by design patents.
And for the public, design patents only last 14 years and have never been extended. That's a lot better than the lifetime+70 years of copyright. So we are much better served by design patents, too.
It might be illegal in other jurisdictions as well? And that's kind of the point of building it.
It's certainly not illegal in the US, which is ironic considering that the music industry he's attacking is based in and uses US laws. 17 USC 117(a) includes a limitation on copyright of computer programs that says that it's not an act of infringement to make temporary copies during execution:
(a)Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.—Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:
(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner...
Normally, that provision is used to exempt "copies" from a hard drive into RAM during execution, but "copies" from a drive to/dev/null would also qualify, since they're created as an essential step during execution of the Kopimashin, and are not used in any other manner (since they're immediately deleted).
Plus, the UK probably has a similar exemption in their copyright law.
The only known way to do that is with intense heat (heat is just movement -- so fast moving particles) and pressure (pressure is just density of the fast-moving particles).
But see, Muon-catalyzed fusion. As the article notes, it allows room temperature fusion, but requires significantly more energy to make the muons than you get out of fusing the hydrogen so it doesn't seem to be a viable research path. However, it's been known for 60 years, lab tested and was predicted by and agrees with theories, so we can't say that fusion can only be done with intense heat and pressure.
This doesn't mean that that's what Rossi's doing. He's most likely a fraud, which is why he has no theory to explain his results and won't let anyone test his apparatus completely independent of him. But that also points back to the article's theory - fraudsters push us from being appropriately skeptical into outright denial, without sufficient evidence to actually support our denial of the underlying theory and, as you did, in conflict with existing theories and evidence. Bad, fraudulent science breeds bad science in the rest of us.
In an analogy to the automatic dismissal of cold fusion experimentation that Price notes, for more than a century, the US Patent Office automatically rejected patent applications directed to restoring baldness, because it was "inherently unbelievable" and "involved implausible scientific principles".
Can you give any more details on that? Googling didn't turn up anything by way of confirmation.
Sure. In re Cortright is a Federal Circuit case that discusses it, and cites to earlier cases:
The PTO may establish a reason to doubt an invention’s asserted utility when the written description “suggest[s] an inherently unbelievable undertaking or involve[s] implausible scientific principles.” Brana, 51 F.3d at 1566, 34 USPQ2d at 1441; see also In re Eltgroth, 419 F.2d 918, 164 USPQ 221 (CCPA 1970) (control of aging process). Treating baldness was once considered an inherently unbelievable undertaking. See In re Ferens, 417 F.2d 1072, 1074, 163 USPQ 609, 611 (CCPA 1969); In re Oberwener, 115 F.2d 826, 829, 47 USPQ 455, 458 (CCPA 1940).
It was the view of the tribunals below that the affidavits were weak in character and were not sufficient to show utility for a concoction which belongs to a class of compositions which from common knowledge has long been the subject matter of much humbuggery and fraud...
Very much like the situation at bar, the affidavits in that case did not afford convincing proof of utility. Certainly there is nothing in this record to show that appellant's composition is any better than the many hundreds of similar concoctions that have been advertised and sold to a credulous public since the beginning of recorded history. It is a matter of common knowledge that numerous preparations, similar in many respects to the one at bar, have been advertised and sold for the purpose of producing hair on bald heads and which were totally lacking in utility, often harmful to the human body, and whose sale was generally understood to be a fraud upon the public.
Having in mind the particular subject matter involved in the instant alleged invention, we are in full agreement with the tribunals of the Patent Office that the claims which are before us on their merits were properly rejected for lack of patentable utility and that the board committed no error in affirming the action of the examiner requiring division of the claims as aforesaid.
35 USC 101 is the relevant statute and it gets a lot of discussion lately with regard to whether software is/should be patentable, and whether isolated genes are/should be patentable, but it's also had a long and interesting history. In addition to baldness cures and perpetual motion machines, slot machines used to be rejected under 35 USC 101 as unpatentable because gambling "lacked any moral utility". That got turned around only very recently in the 1990s, in the amusingly titled Juicy Whip v. Orange Bang, which dealt with the "utility" of machines intended to defraud customers. Very weird, interesting, and mostly irrelevant region of law.
Disclaimer: I am a patent attorney, which also makes me very weird, interesting, and mostly irrelevant.
In an analogy to the automatic dismissal of cold fusion experimentation that Price notes, for more than a century, the US Patent Office automatically rejected patent applications directed to restoring baldness, because it was "inherently unbelievable" and "involved implausible scientific principles". This was the same rejection applied to applications for perpetual motion machines, teleporters, etc. - they can't possibly work, by definition, so the application is claiming a useless invention and is therefore ineligible for a patent.
Of course, then Rogaine and Propecia were invented and proven to cure baldness, and eventually the courts had to step in and tell the patent office that they were wrong and that hair restoration was at least theoretically possible.
Pons and Fleishmann are like the early snake oil salesmen, selling "tonics" for hair restoration from their carts. Their "evidence" is non-reproducible and poorly tested, and they lacked even a theory for how their machine worked, instead insisting only that it generated more energy than could be explained. Like hair restoration, that doesn't make the entire field impossible - it just means that at best, they had no idea what they were talking about, and at worst, they personally were frauds.
That doesn't mean that Rossi and his ilk are automatically frauds either - maybe they are (they're certainly in the "have no idea what they're talking about" camp, since they have no theories for why they're getting the results they're getting), or maybe they're like the first researchers for Rogaine who have some strange evidence of new hair growth. Until we have something that can be repeatedly and reliably tested and confirmed or rejected, or a defined theory that either works out mathematically or doesn't, then it should neither be accepted nor dismissed out of hand.
And thus he must realize that such a law would almost certainly fail a First Amendment challenge. Such a law would be similar to the Sedition Act, and numerous legal scholars have held the view that that kaw would have been struck down to eventually.
Sure, it would have... but would this Supreme Court have done it? I guarantee that it wouldn't be a unanimous decision now.
One database analyzed by the Daily Dot includes the sensitive information of around 40,000 customers, including their full names, credit card numbers, and birthdays. One account contained 4,7174,962.38 dirham, or $12,844,589.77. Those accounts' total earnings add up to $110,736,002.
$110.7 million over 40,000 accounts is an average of $2,767.5 per account. That one guy with $12 million has over 4600 times the average.
Slashdot Mirror
It depends on the triggers in question. Trigger warnings about rapes and such - yes, they're a good thing. Trigger warnings about things like mentioning slavery, because supposedly someone is "forced to relive the suffering of their ancestors" and is "traumatized" by it, are bullshit.
Why is that bullshit? Not that I think that situation has ever actually happened, but you don't believe in educating people? You think kids should sign up for a class and not be given a syllabus, and have no idea what they're going to learn? Why is it 'bullshit' to give people more information?
In many cases, those trigger warnings are also implicit. In a sense that if you're going to go to a history class, then, yeah, you can be expected to deal with historical topics such as slavery or treating women as property - this shouldn't require a trigger warning.
My music history class never touched on either of those. Perhaps not every history class is the same, and people should know in advance what the class will cover?
Similarly, if you're going to a stand-up comedy, you can expect to hear jokes involving ethnic stereotypes and gender roles, for example - and this shouldn't require a trigger warning, either.
Not that it has. Cleese was complaining about colleges, not stand-up comedy shows. Which is like a college professor complaining about stand-up shows. Maybe they should stick to worrying about their own jobs?
Either way, college kids who want their university to shut down an event because they dislike an invited guest is a situation where we can assume that they know what they expect to hear (and be offended by) in advance. If they don't actually know but still want to shut it down because they don't like the person specifically, then it's pure ad hominem on their part, and should be dismissed with prejudice without wasting any time on it.
And they have been, and what's your point? Cleese was saying that they shouldn't even be allowed to ask for it to be shut down, because the very idea of shutting things down is so offensive to him that he needs a blanket and nice cup of tea. He's asking for them to be censored because they asked for other events to be censored. How about just saying "no, you can hold your own event?" Why does everyone, on both sides immediately jump to "we cannot allow them to speak"?
You know what's an easy way to avoid "triggering" and offensive terms? Don't go to stand-up comedy. Especially when you know in advance that the comic in question is offensive to you.
Ah, so we're in agreement that people should be informed in advance of whatever triggering or offensive things may occur, and if they can't deal, they can bugger off? In other words, trigger warnings are good things?
For example, from TFA:
"[Psychiatrist Robin Skynner] said: 'If people can't control their own emotions, then they have to start trying to control other people's behavior,'" Cleese said. "And when you're around super-sensitive people, you cannot relax and be spontaneous because you have no idea what's going to upset them next."
So Cleese is essentially saying he's super-sensitive about super-sensitive people since he can't relax around them, and he wants them silenced so he can feel better. I thought the Brits were supposed to be masters of irony.
Great video that explains the situation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Dawkins was deplatformed for twitting this satirical (and hilarious) video.
Feminists Love Islamists https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Please, everybody here, take an active stance and post that video on your twitter and/or facebook accounts. Let the feminists/Islamists know that there censorship efforts are counter productive.
(i) No, I'm not watching some half hour video of someone talking. I can read faster than he can talk. Give me a transcript if you want your ideas spread.
(ii) What's a "feminist/Islamist"? That's like saying "atheist/Evangelical".
(iii) It's "their".
And as far as his comments about black-body radiation from such a structure, it doesn't seem terribly unreasonable for a civilization capable of such engineering such a megastructure in the first place, to have figured out how to convert heat energy into something more usable/consumable.
I think the easiest explanation for that comes from the premise of the Dyson Sphere itself - you're building the thing because you want to capture the solar output energy, so simply putting an optical shell around it and having it radiate that energy in IR doesn't actually help you. Obviously, you're using solar panels and/or mirrors to capture the energy and then retransmitting it to your preferred processing site. Maybe you've got bunches of microwave transmitters on the surface beaming high power (but narrow and not visible from Earth) rays to orbiting factories that are running particle accelerators to make antimatter for your spaceships. Maybe they're even beaming it out beyond that solar system, but to another one that's not in line with the Earth.
The "sun generates X energy, so a Dyson Sphere should radiate X energy as IR" incorrectly assumes that you build the sphere for funsies and never attempt to use that energy.
There's another possibility that's just as far out, and would explain the missing IR.
It's a traffic hub for small FTL ships.
While an interesting idea, you'd have the same problem as the comets - half a million "small" FTL ships that are 200 kilometers wide, except that's a huge-ass ship, so you're really talking about many billions of reasonably sized ships. It takes a lot of such ships to block an appreciable amount of the solar output.
It's called a gun lock... every responsible owner has one for each gun or rifle they have. Gun lockers/safes are good options, too.
One of the major points in the Supreme Court's decision in DC v. Heller was over trigger-locks - Heller, the allegedly "responsible gun owner" didn't want to use a trigger lock, which DC required. SCOTUS held by a narrow majority that the requirement was unconstitutional because it made it "impossible" to use the gun for self-defense.
Yeah you're wrong on every point. That means you're trying.
... says the guy who cherry-picked and only responded to a few points here and there. You're conceding that I'm right on all the other ones, yes? For example, did you follow that link to Google Patents and see all of the thousands and thousands of issued European software patents? Or are you still a "denier==terrorist" per your signature?
>>that means that the only way to really protect your business software.
Yeah, you protect your business by providing excellent software which is itself a natural barrier to entrance.
I notice you quoted me out of context and even modified the quote. Let's see the whole thing:
... that means that the only way to really protect your business software, other than patents, is to require proprietary formats that aren't interoperable. And that's bad for consumers.
You completely disregarded the entire point about proprietary formats, which are bad for consumers. It's almost like you don't actually care about the public... a funny position for someone allegedly arguing against giant corporations.
If you look at the world of IDEs, people have very strong preferences for one over the other. There are no software patents involved protecting anyone. In fact, even giving away the stuff for free is NOT enough to make enough people switch from IntelliJ to Eclipse, for example, to put IntelliJ out of business. All with no software patents.
And what do those have? Proprietary formats! Just like I said, and you excised from my quote. Most people recognize that those are bad, and would prefer to freely be able to port their work between competing products.
That's a figure from the patent, it's not what the patent covers. The only part of the patent that has legal weight are the claims
The information provided in the drawings is exactly isomorphic tot he information provided in the claims. Patent lawyers know people have a hard time reading claims (by design.. patent language is a product of a priesthood which self-consciously seeks to protect itself by bartering in obscuritanism ) and like to make this argument also. If you read the claims and look at the diagrams, they are describing the same set of affairs, encryption keys and all.
Translation: "You're right, Theaetetus. I was wrong when I claimed they were patenting a flow chart. They're actually patenting an implementation recited by the claims, and I don't know how to read those, so I was confused and pointed to the block diagram instead."
No problem, and I'm happy to help you learn to read patent claims. They're actually not confusing at all, if you take your time. Honestly, the only words you may need to learn are "comprising" and "consisting".
You're just undermining your position by revealing that a humdrum and natural application of encryption keys (what else are they for except exchanging information securely over a public network) is now off limits to everyone but Dropbox.
Nope, I'm tearing apart your allegation that the patent prevents all file-sharing. You've now moved those goalposts to "a natural application of encryption keys" which certainly wasn't anywhere in your original post. Don't worry, we can all see the holes in the turf from where they used to be and will avoid tripping over them.
Maybe you'll eventually even move the goalposts to what the patent actually covers, rather than claiming it covers the world... Oh, wait:
To wit: there is no set of classes, no interaction between any objects and no alternative architecture of any kind which is permitted by this patent.
You're now claiming this patent covers any "interaction between objects".
Oooookay. Well, give you credit for doubling down. Not sure if it's going to actually convince anyone, though.
Yeah, otherwise known as a "software patent". It's worth clarifying what a software patent is not, the better to understand what it is and why it's so pernicious and why they're banned (yes, they are) in the EU and pretty much everywhere else in the world except AU. and JP.
They're also banned in the US - there are no patents on pure software per se, which is the same rule used by the EU and everywhere else (including the AU and JP). Instead, this is a patent on a method of using an electronic device; a product that includes executable code; and a computer system including a processor, memory, and program module, and includes various additional limitations that apparently aren't taught or suggested by the prior art.
Alternately, look at this and then come tell us again how software patents are banned in the EU.
Software patents are not patents on specific ways for causing a machine to perform a useful function. That type of IP is the IP we call "copyright". Copyright does prevent your code, your (virtual) machine, from being ripped off.
Copyright protects only that specific code. Rewrite the code, and it's not copyright infringement. TinyTower doesn't infringe the copyright of DreamHeights. Farmville doesn't infringe the copyright of FarmTown. Open Office doesn't infringe the copyright of Microsoft Office.
Copyright is useful when someone wants that specific item: we want to see the latest Avengers movie, not some Bollywood "Revengers" knock-off (caveat: some of us want to see that). We want the latest Taylor Swift album, not Sailor Tift's album (caveat: some of us want neither). It's why movies and books and music are pirated - we want those exact items.
But that doesn't apply to most software. In fact, copyright is generally useless for software, and particularly for business software: your average office worker doesn't care if they're using Numbers or Excel or Google Sheets, as long as the functionality is there and they're interoperable... and that means that the only way to really protect your business software, other than patents, is to require proprietary formats that aren't interoperable. And that's bad for consumers.
You have to find a relatively original way to achieve the same effect, but the *idea* of what you're doing is not patentable. Copyright naturally delivers all that to computer IP.
As noted above, TinyTower/DreamHeights; Farmville/FarmTown; MS Word/Writer; Excel/Calc; etc., etc. Those all use the same exact ways to achieve the same effect, but because they don't actually involve copied code or graphics, they're not copyright infringements.
Software patents are patents on all ways to cause a machine to perform a generally describable function. It's not the specific implementation performing the useful function that is being protected- it's the ability to achieve the same ends in any way whatsoever.
Not at all - "software patents", like any patents, cover a specific implementation. In fact, claiming just the result - "the ends" - is unpatentable.
In this case, the "ends" are sharing files. You claim that the patent covers every way to share files, right? Like "copying a file to disk and giving it to a friend"? Well, let's see... Nope. The word "disk" only shows up once in the specification and nowhere in the claims. Nor do the claims bear any relation to copying a file to a disk and sharing it. You couldn't possibly infringe the patent by copying a file to a disk and giving it to a friend, and therefore, no, the patent doesn't cover that.
It seems like you don't actually understand what a patent is, or what parts of it are important. For example:
So like the RIM patent debacle, this patent covers things unbelievably
Jeffrey Dixon, of HINSHAW Law, do you feel proud now of your prowess, and your 'management' of eight assistants? You are really powerful. I should fear you. Boo-gah boo-gah!.
I know your boss, personally. So, really just shut the f*ck up about being a gigantic patent stud, when all you really do is put into text the ideas of actual inventors, geniuses, professors, etc.
Feel proud that you are able to reduce descriptions of brilliant ideas into legalese. That is a monkey-talent that not every person can learn.
As for having brilliant ideas. . . Well, you have none; otherwise you would be an inventor/scientist/etc. — You are simply a scribe – one who serves at the leisure of your intellectual superiors.
Yes, I see you looked me up on LinkedIn. You deserve a medal for that. Or at least a certificate!
Lol, nope. Wrong guy. Sorry, Mr. Dixon, for drawing the ire of Sir Holo of Slashdot, Lord of the Inept Googling.
I only know what my patent attorney tells me.
I will likely be initiating an interference proceeding.
Oh well, back to my 30 patents, of which a family of 20 is being heavily and overtly infringed.
Well, far be it from me to recommend against entering into a proceeding that could cost anywhere between $20k-$200k, without a guarantee of getting a patent at the end of it. Good luck to you. I'll go back to the 3000 patents on my docket and the 8 associates I oversee.
A copyright or patent for a year is little incentive for new inventions, and a forever patent or copyright provides no return for society in return for that protection.
Where is the optimum? I believe it is 14 years.
The last Star Trek movie came out a year and a half ago, and the next one is due out in 7 months. I think they're well within your optimum range to be protecting their IP.
The Patent application (publication) is three pages in total. That is incredibly short.
It also has (for now) only one claim, not a list of claims of various scope.
It also lacks a list Examples or Embodiments, which are the structure that support a Patent when contested or claimed in Court.
This is a design patent. It only has one claim because design patents are only allowed to have one claim. It is incredibly short because only the figures matter, and the description is mostly irrelevant. There aren't multiple embodiments, because the embodiment shown in the figures is the only embodiment claimed, by definition.
Last, the Figure shown on the front page looks very, very Mac-like. As if they are trying to get Patent coverage for a Design which already exist(ed) on the drawing boards of a competing firm.
Note that this was filed in 2006 or 2007 (I won't waste the seconds to check). Mac OS X Finder does indeed feature this exact type of magnification slider in the bottom-right of any Finder window, although I forget when the element was introduced.
I'm on a Mac right now and no, there is not "this exact type of magnification slider". There's this slider (from the last version - on the current, the central 'knob' is solid and flat), but it lacks the plus and minus at either end, and lacks the prominent trapezoidal arrow 'knob' in the patent.
While it is a "slider", it is not "this exact type of magnification slider" as you claimed, and would not infringe a design patent. This likely goes back to your confusion over design patents and utility patents - while it is a slider serving the same function or utility, such a functional feature is public domain and has been for decades, if not centuries. It is not what is claimed by this design patent.
(Note that the AIA did not go into effect until January 2014, making this stupid patent application part of the 'first-to-invent' era.)
And that's irrelevant. All the first-to-invent regime changed was interference proceedings, where two inventors filed applications on the exact same invention simultaneously. Out of half a million applications filed annually, there were 20 interference proceedings, and they were tremendously expensive and different from the procedures every other country in the world. It did not magically make prior art not applicable or existent, as some people who spout off about patents without actually knowing what they're talking about claim.
This is what a design patent is like:
"Be it known that I, AUGUESTE BARTHOLDI, of Paris, in the Republic of France, have originated and produced a Design of a Monumental Statue, representing 'Liberty enlightening the world....'
The statue is that of a female figure standing erect upon a pedestal or block, the body being thrown slightly over to the left, so as to gravitate upon the left leg, the whole figure being thus in equilibrium, and symmetrically arranged with respect to a perpendicular line or axis passing through the ead and left foot... The right arm is thrown up and stretched out, with a flamboyant torch grasped in the hand.... The head, with its classical, yet severe and calm. features, is surmounted by a crown or diadem, from which radiate divergingly seven rays, tapering from'the crown, and representing a halo."
That protected Bartholdi against anyone making copies of the Statue of Liberty for fourteen years.
Not quite - that's (part of) the description, which has no legal weight on its own but is merely to be used in interpreting the patent claim. There's also a sketch of the Statue of Liberty illustrating the description. Your last sentence is correct - it protects against anyone making exact copies of the Statue of Liberty, but doesn't protect against other statues of Liberty, such as, for example, this one.
You're confused because you think that all patents are utility patents. Design patents aren't like that. In fact, they are things where nobody would reinvent them independently, because they serve no functional purpose and are purely ornamental. Even something as simple as this is quite unlikely to be copied so exactly that it would violate the design patent.
So why get the design patent? So that somebody can't intentionally spoof your design (legally) to trick users into thinking it's your product. It's branding. It's a lot like a trademark, but it's part of the product rather than a label on top of it.
Yep, and in this case, Corel Write included a specific "look like Microsoft Word" mode, ostensibly to be easier for people switching. It replaces the toolbars with MS-style ribbons, uses the slider, even uses the odd expanding style icons that MS has. The complaint is linked in the EFF article and includes comparison pictures, and this is pretty egregious copying of MS' look and feel.
Then why is there such a thing as design patents at all?
I mean, ever single time they've been explained to me, they seem much better served by copyright. Why do they get a patent instead of a copyright that's likely to last [retroactively applied ever increasing amounts of time]?
Copyright only protects you if your competitor actually copies your design - as in, buys one of your products, looks at the feature, and makes an exact copy of it. If they happen to come up with it on their own, it's not copyright infringement, even if it's identical. If you were a hermit in a hut in the woods and you type out Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone from your own imagination, it's not copyright infringement, even if every single word is the same. So, copyright infringement requires proof of access, proof of copying, etc. If the other side says "no, our designers are locked in a closet and never saw your product," you have to prove they weren't. So that makes it really tough in instances like this to prove copyright infringement, so they're better served by design patents.
And for the public, design patents only last 14 years and have never been extended. That's a lot better than the lifetime+70 years of copyright. So we are much better served by design patents, too.
The Kopimashin is illegal in England: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-...
It might be illegal in other jurisdictions as well? And that's kind of the point of building it.
It's certainly not illegal in the US, which is ironic considering that the music industry he's attacking is based in and uses US laws. 17 USC 117(a) includes a limitation on copyright of computer programs that says that it's not an act of infringement to make temporary copies during execution:
(a)Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.—Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided: (1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner...
Normally, that provision is used to exempt "copies" from a hard drive into RAM during execution, but "copies" from a drive to /dev/null would also qualify, since they're created as an essential step during execution of the Kopimashin, and are not used in any other manner (since they're immediately deleted).
Plus, the UK probably has a similar exemption in their copyright law.
The only known way to do that is with intense heat (heat is just movement -- so fast moving particles) and pressure (pressure is just density of the fast-moving particles).
But see, Muon-catalyzed fusion. As the article notes, it allows room temperature fusion, but requires significantly more energy to make the muons than you get out of fusing the hydrogen so it doesn't seem to be a viable research path. However, it's been known for 60 years, lab tested and was predicted by and agrees with theories, so we can't say that fusion can only be done with intense heat and pressure.
This doesn't mean that that's what Rossi's doing. He's most likely a fraud, which is why he has no theory to explain his results and won't let anyone test his apparatus completely independent of him. But that also points back to the article's theory - fraudsters push us from being appropriately skeptical into outright denial, without sufficient evidence to actually support our denial of the underlying theory and, as you did, in conflict with existing theories and evidence. Bad, fraudulent science breeds bad science in the rest of us.
Any citation for this story?
Yep - just to avoid copypasta spam, check out my reply to the same question here.
In an analogy to the automatic dismissal of cold fusion experimentation that Price notes, for more than a century, the US Patent Office automatically rejected patent applications directed to restoring baldness, because it was "inherently unbelievable" and "involved implausible scientific principles".
Can you give any more details on that? Googling didn't turn up anything by way of confirmation.
Sure. In re Cortright is a Federal Circuit case that discusses it, and cites to earlier cases:
The PTO may establish a reason to doubt an invention’s asserted utility when the written description “suggest[s] an inherently unbelievable undertaking or involve[s] implausible scientific principles.” Brana, 51 F.3d at 1566, 34 USPQ2d at 1441; see also In re Eltgroth, 419 F.2d 918, 164 USPQ 221 (CCPA 1970) (control of aging process). Treating baldness was once considered an inherently unbelievable undertaking. See In re Ferens, 417 F.2d 1072, 1074, 163 USPQ 609, 611 (CCPA 1969); In re Oberwener, 115 F.2d 826, 829, 47 USPQ 455, 458 (CCPA 1940).
And Oberweger (the above cite is a typo) includes the quotes:
It was the view of the tribunals below that the affidavits were weak in character and were not sufficient to show utility for a concoction which belongs to a class of compositions which from common knowledge has long been the subject matter of much humbuggery and fraud...
Very much like the situation at bar, the affidavits in that case did not afford convincing proof of utility. Certainly there is nothing in this record to show that appellant's composition is any better than the many hundreds of similar concoctions that have been advertised and sold to a credulous public since the beginning of recorded history. It is a matter of common knowledge that numerous preparations, similar in many respects to the one at bar, have been advertised and sold for the purpose of producing hair on bald heads and which were totally lacking in utility, often harmful to the human body, and whose sale was generally understood to be a fraud upon the public.
Having in mind the particular subject matter involved in the instant alleged invention, we are in full agreement with the tribunals of the Patent Office that the claims which are before us on their merits were properly rejected for lack of patentable utility and that the board committed no error in affirming the action of the examiner requiring division of the claims as aforesaid.
35 USC 101 is the relevant statute and it gets a lot of discussion lately with regard to whether software is/should be patentable, and whether isolated genes are/should be patentable, but it's also had a long and interesting history. In addition to baldness cures and perpetual motion machines, slot machines used to be rejected under 35 USC 101 as unpatentable because gambling "lacked any moral utility". That got turned around only very recently in the 1990s, in the amusingly titled Juicy Whip v. Orange Bang, which dealt with the "utility" of machines intended to defraud customers. Very weird, interesting, and mostly irrelevant region of law.
Disclaimer: I am a patent attorney, which also makes me very weird, interesting, and mostly irrelevant.
Of course, then Rogaine and Propecia were invented and proven to cure baldness, and eventually the courts had to step in and tell the patent office that they were wrong and that hair restoration was at least theoretically possible.
Pons and Fleishmann are like the early snake oil salesmen, selling "tonics" for hair restoration from their carts. Their "evidence" is non-reproducible and poorly tested, and they lacked even a theory for how their machine worked, instead insisting only that it generated more energy than could be explained. Like hair restoration, that doesn't make the entire field impossible - it just means that at best, they had no idea what they were talking about, and at worst, they personally were frauds.
That doesn't mean that Rossi and his ilk are automatically frauds either - maybe they are (they're certainly in the "have no idea what they're talking about" camp, since they have no theories for why they're getting the results they're getting), or maybe they're like the first researchers for Rogaine who have some strange evidence of new hair growth. Until we have something that can be repeatedly and reliably tested and confirmed or rejected, or a defined theory that either works out mathematically or doesn't, then it should neither be accepted nor dismissed out of hand.
And thus he must realize that such a law would almost certainly fail a First Amendment challenge. Such a law would be similar to the Sedition Act, and numerous legal scholars have held the view that that kaw would have been struck down to eventually.
Sure, it would have... but would this Supreme Court have done it? I guarantee that it wouldn't be a unanimous decision now.
For example, maybe he's widely cited by people disagreeing with his shenanigans.
... and her granddaughter is 26, which raises the question of why she's monitoring her Playstation usage.
One database analyzed by the Daily Dot includes the sensitive information of around 40,000 customers, including their full names, credit card numbers, and birthdays. One account contained 4,7174,962.38 dirham, or $12,844,589.77. Those accounts' total earnings add up to $110,736,002.
$110.7 million over 40,000 accounts is an average of $2,767.5 per account. That one guy with $12 million has over 4600 times the average.