This guy's my hero - misuse of "comprised" is a pet peeve of mine.
Despite sounding vaguely similar to "composed", it's not a synonym. Comprised is a near-synonym for included, but implies totality. "The band comprised a guitarist, a bassist, and a drummer" means that was the entirety of the band. Since so few people actually understand this, I tend to avoid the word.
I believe you have that backwards. "Comprising" is open-ended, and means "including at least". "Consisting of" implies totality. At least in the legal world.
Just fyi, and you may be aware of this as you are getting mails both with & without the period. Gmail essentially ignores them so you can send a mail to yourname@gmail.com, your.name@gmail.com or y.ourna.m....e@gmail.com and they will all work just fine:)
Yep. OTOH, I also have a common firstnamelastname@gmail address, and I've replied to emails to the other me with a similar polite explanation, and get angry responses back that no, firstname.lastname is different.
Okay, sure it is... But then, how did I manage to reply to your email?
Lolz. Back in the 1960s, the same exact argument was made for why women were better at computer work.
Your link makes no argument for why women are better at computer work. "And if it doesn't sound like women's work--well, it just is." So no, it doesn't make the same argument at all. I don't buy the original claim (for one thing, "jumping around quickly to different thoughts, problems, and topics" is actually quite useful), but your link fails to refute it.
Of course it fails to refute it, because neither proposition is true: women are neither inherently better nor worse at computer work. It's not like there's some dominant gene on the Y chromosome that makes men appreciate terminal windows more.
Genetically predisposed to be uninterested in CS. As in, hundreds of thousands of years of evolution created a genetic predisposition to be interested or not interested in a field that has only existed for half a century?
Just because the field has only existed for half a century doesn't mean that the predispositions
aren't older than that. Humans are genetically predisposed to be better at riding a bike than a fish
even though both have been around for much longer.
Yes, because, among other reasons, fish lack knees.
How many female professional race car drivers do you see?
For decades, women were not allowed to be professional race car drivers. Now, they're able to, and so there are now several, both in F1 and NASCAR. Are you going to suggest that women genetically evolved to become race car drivers over the past 80 years?
There are certain things about computers and cars that more boys than girls are attracted to.
Sure. For one, marketing. But you'd have to be crazy to suggest that that's due to genetics.
There are obvious exceptions like my daughter who likes sports and frogs more than her brothers but on average you will find more of one gender than the other attracted to certain activities and I don't see a problem with it as long as everyone is allowed to freely choose their own interests.
Yes, but again, that has nothing to do with a genetic predisposition. Now, if you were to say that you find more women than men menstruating or bearing children, or more men than women having color blindness, then you could point to a genetic predisposition. But to say that boys like computers because of genetics is just silly.
No one is inherently more intelligent about anything. The truth is boys go into computers because boys are interested in computers: experiments with small children under 2 years old have shown that small boys find interests more in trucks, and small girls prefer dolls. Small boys who do play with dolls in such experiments tend to make them fight; we call boys's dolls "action figures" for this reason. In both cases, the children select for what interests them inherently.
New research from the University of Western Sydney shows baby boys prefer objects with faces over machines, challenging the theory of an innate preference among babies for ‘girly’ or ‘macho’ toys.
Researchers from the MARCS Institute Babylab at the University of Western Sydney gauged the preferences of four and five month old babies by showing them pictures of male and female humans and dolls, as well as cars and stoves.
The study, published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, found that like baby girls, baby boys were more willing to engage with dolls than cars.
How about their pull their heads out of political correct land and realize male brains are better at logical computer tasks. Male and female brains process thoughts differently. This is known science! Female brains typically work well with relational thoughts and can piece multiple things together but lack solid focus on solving one individual problem. Male brains compartmentalize thoughts and like to process one thing to completion then move on instead of jumping around quickly to different thoughts, problems, or topics. Males are better at most computer work because of this and that's the end of it. Females don't work with computer science fields because they don't enjoy it and aren't good at it.
Lolz. Back in the 1960s, the same exact argument was made for why women were better at computer work. What's the difference between then and now? The amount that a computer programmer is paid compared to the minimum wage.
Are you trying to say that girls are genetically predisposed to be uninterested in CS? That doesn't seem right...
That's exactly what he's saying. I have 3 kids age 7-9. The boys love computers and video games. My girl won't touch a video
game unless someone else is playing with her...
Genetically predisposed to be uninterested in CS. As in, hundreds of thousands of years of evolution created a genetic predisposition to be interested or not interested in a field that has only existed for half a century?
Along with your work, you provide a promise not to sue, giving up all your rights to the work in question. It's clearly illegal to do that with the intent of changing your mind later.
Well, since the armchair/. lawyers will soon descend upon your post spouting off about how you can't enforce anything without a contract, let's just go ahead and get this posted: Promissory Estoppel;-)
However, as your link notes, the measure of recovery wouldn't be the same as if the contract existed, since there would've been no negotiation and awarding full use of the work would be unjust enrichment. Instead, a court would probably say that there are no royalties due for past infringement, but that you don't get an unlimited right going forward to keep using the work.
First your entire understanding is completely incorrect.
She initially claimed that a RO was needed becuase he was spreading nudes of her, while it was she who posted them publicly when working as a model. A) He did not spread the links (or rather nothing concrete can be found to link him), and B) they were distributed BEFORE the RO was issued; give they were used as justification for one.
Unless you are now arguing that action which promoted the issuance of a RO can then be used as evidence of violating it after issuance?
The police report you linked says that they were distributed in a podcast on 09/20/14. It also says the restraining order was issued on 09/16/14. Now, I'm no mathematician, but I do believe that 9/16 is before 9/20, not after.
Or are you arguing that the police report you provided is fake?
Secondly, I guess you missed the start of the second paragraph, wherein she claims Milo and Gjoni are part of some group whose purpose is to spread doxx information.
Nope, read it. You claimed - and I quote - she "claimed that he and Milo, are part of some professional doxxing organization." I responded that the word "professional" doesn't appear there. Are you now backpedaling on that and admitting that she's only claiming that he's part of a group that doxxes people? Or do you want to double down and claim that use of the word "organization" automatically means it's professional?
Third, if you simply listen to the podcast, it was not Gjoni discussing that information. KoP was, and Gjoni was just present. So even if the information was spread, it was not Gjoni spreading it. A RO may prevent Gjoni from discussing the matter but that does not hold him liable for when others do.
Do you have a copy of the transcript? I can't find one online, so I can't verify. Also, depending on the wording of the restraining order, a judge is still going to crack down on Gjoni if he tries to pull a "I didn't reveal her personal information, the person sitting to my right (reading the note I passed him) revealed her personal information".
Also in followup to this, Gjoni's Lawyer was then doxxed and threatened; and the doxxer is now being sued.
First, got a link? Second, I'm not sure how this is relevant to what we're discussing. Is there any claim that Quinn was the doxxer?
Incidentally, if by Gjoni's lawyer, you mean Mike Cernovich, I really hope he's not claiming to be Gjoni's lawyer, because he's not a member of the Massachusetts Bar, and unlicensed practice of law can get him huge sanctions.
RalphRetort has the rest of the links but I am opting not to share them directly due to doxxing issues.
I'm not sure what you mean by that. You can't provide a citation because you're afraid of being doxxed?
OR how as part of the gag order, she claimed that Gjoni spread internet links to nude pictures of her, while failing to mention these were images she had made public of her own volition, while working as a model/camgirl.
And claimed that he and Milo, are part of some professional doxxing organization, despite in reality they had never spoken prior to GG
First, your link doesn't say what you claim it says. The word "professional" never appears anywhere in there, nor "paid", "compensation", or anything else that might imply it was a professional organization.
Second, the police report indicates that the restraining order forbid any posting of her personal information by Gjoni. But, as you admit, Gjoni spread internet links to nude pictures of her. Regardless of who put them up initially, it certainly seems like you're admitting he violated the restraining order.
Restraining orders are explicit orders to not do certain things. If you do them, you're in deep shiat, even if they seem to make no sense at the time. For example, when people with restraining orders who are told to stay away from each other due to a domestic fight later reconcile and get back together without first going to a court and having the order withdrawn go to jail. If the order tells Gjoni not to post any personal information about Quinn, and he posts a copy of a white pages entry naming her, he's still in violation of the order. There's no "sure, I posted personal information, but other people did too" or "sure I posted personal information, but it wasn't secret" defenses. You simply can't do it, or you're in violation.
I'm starting to think this gamer gate is just another grouping of right wing nuts.
No, that's been researched. GG is mostly left of center. This is authoritarian left (SJWs like Quinn, Alexander, Grayson, McIntosh, Chu, etc) vs libertarian left (GG).
Say what? GG's supporters include writers at Breitbart, Ed Morrisey at Hot Air, conservative Adam Baldwin, Christina Hoff Sommers, etc. This is Tea Party-style "libertarians" and conservatives against progressives.
Brianna Wu? Brianna "I don't know when I can return to my home [and spend the night and fall asleep without fear], from whence I am giving this interview [during the daytime with lots of people around]" Wu?
An actual engineer would have at least figured out a way to make 1 optical drive read discs from both systems.
They're both SATA Blu-Ray drives. Seems like it should be possible, but would need a SATA data splitter (which doesn't exist), or a switch to flip all of the data pins between each motherboard. In SATA, that's only really 4 pins, since the other three are ground, so a 4-pole 2-way switch should do it... but you'd be killing the shielding, common mode noise rejection between pairs, etc. at the switch. So, while theoretically, it might work, in practice it may just spit out drive errors. At least one advantage is that the SATA spec includes up to a 1m cable length, and you'd only need about 10 centimeters, tops.
I'm pointing to the idea of popularity of an invention being nonobvious as an indicator that the idea was also nonobvious.
I don't see why the burden of proof is not on you for this claim.
First, because of the way the patent act is written - it says that if a patent application can't be shown to be obvious, then it will be issued. That makes sense logically, because proving that something is nonobvious after having disclosed it is going to be nigh-difficult if not impossible. What are you going to do, wipe everyone's memory and then quiz them?
Second, even disregarding that, I've already met the burden of proof - I provided evidence in the form of "you admitted this is valuable" and "this didn't exist". Together, that indicates it was probably not obvious, or someone would have done it. It's your turn to rebut it, with evidence, not just saying "it's clearly obvious".
And as of yet, you have pointed to no indicators as to whether something is obvious.
The indicator I am using is the metric that the invention in question could have been invented even if the patent had not been granted. We can never know this in the absolute sense that we can't change the past and see how it affects the future, but I think reasonable people can agree that a blue and gold polka dot smartphone could be invented even without a patent
Of course the invention in question could have been invented - it was invented, or else we wouldn't be talking about it. Your indicator is essentially "this was invented, therefore it could have been invented, and since it could have been invented, no one had to invent it because it was obvious". That circular logic applies to everything from the space shuttle to cancer vaccines.
(i.e. the R&D costs of figuring out how to do it are negligible compared to a phone of any other color)
The implementation costs are negligible... the R&D costs - figuring out that it is an improvement, doing user testing, etc., are quite high compared to the implementation costs... and, I believe, that ratio was your metric indicating it should be patentable.
Tell that to Zynga, or any of the indie designers they've ripped off.
If this were not true, then no one would ever design any games or software seeing as how unprofitable it would be.
Well, there's a lot of shovelware out there, and not much in the way of new designs, you'll notice. It's starting to become like Atari in the 80s.
On the contrary, it's pretty easy. [youtube.com]
Writing an application that mimics some very small subsection of a much larger UI is not very hard. If this was all there was to Apple's UI, then they *really* don't deserve a patent. This software is an "easy copy" of Apple's UI like how a picture of a Ferrari is an "easy copy" of a real Ferrari. Is it easy to copy a Ferrari? Maybe yes, maybe no, but a picture of a Ferrari is not proof that it is easy (unless you have a very low standard for what counts as a Ferrari).
However, once you can buy a Ferrari and take it apart, it's pretty easy to copy with a machine shop and some skilled workers. And since we're not talking about the engine, but the UI, it's even easier to make a body case of a Ferrari and build a fiberglass look-alike. I'd give a Hollywood special effects shop a week, tops.
Similarly, I'd give a team of Russian hackers a week or two to reverse engineer any UI you build, even if it took you months and months of trial and error and alternate designs to come up with the best one.
But they also come up with new aspects, which is why the UIs are evolving. Those new aspects that others copy, because they believe they're the best aspects, must not have been obvious, or they would already have been inco
I think you are confusing the idea of an invention being obvious and the idea of the popularity of an invention being obvious.
I am not saying that it is obvious whether any idea will be popular.
I'm pointing to the idea of popularity of an invention being nonobvious as an indicator that the idea was also nonobvious. And as of yet, you have pointed to no indicators as to whether something is obvious.
We are talking about copying the design of a piece of software, and incorporating it into your own software in order to sell. The cost of this is not negligible at all. In fact it is probably pretty close to the actual cost of designing it in the first place in many cases.
Tell that to Zynga, or any of the indie designers they've ripped off.
Go ask someone to recreate IOS or android or windows UI for use in your own product to sell. This cost will not be negligable. Nor can you just drag and drop some files to have that UI magically appear in your own application.
All of these UIs have copied the best aspects (from their point of view) of the others, which is why there is a lot of co-evolution happening among UI design.
But they also come up with new aspects, which is why the UIs are evolving. Those new aspects that others copy, because they believe they're the best aspects, must not have been obvious, or they would already have been incorporated - since, as you say, they're acknowledged as the "best".
Was it? Here's the thing - you already admitted this was valuable. If making a smartphone in gold and blue polka dots meant that your profit would increase and you knew it, wouldn't you do it? Of course you would, you're a smart guy who likes money.
Or, conversely, if making a smartphone in gold and blue polka dots meant that your profit would increase and you didn't know it, then that would explain why you didn't do it.
So, when someone subsequently comes out with a gold and blue polkadot phone and their sales shoot up, you can't very well say "pff, that's obvious, I knew about that all along... I just didn't do it because I hate making money" and expect to be believed.
You seem to be reasserting the claim that something can not be obvious if no one has done it yet. It is this very claim that I am disputing.
While it may not be obvious that people will like a blue and gold polkadot phone, it should be plainly obvious that such a phone could be made and how it could be made, even if no one ever makes one.
Not exactly... I'm asserting the claim that if no one has done something yet and it's commercially valuable to do so, then it's likely not obvious. Evidence of that is the fact that if it was obvious, someone would have taken the free money. Because no one has, that implies no one thought of it.
You're disputing this by saying "no, it's plainly obvious." Well, that's a fine conclusion, but where's your evidence?
If X is the the price of R&D and Y is the price of copying it, we should allow patents on products with a high X:Y ratio.
Sure, let's go with that - the price of copying software is negligible, while the price of designing it is comparatively huge. In fact, the copying price is so small - a click and drag, in one scenario - that the ratio approaches or exceeds that of pharmaceuticals, where at least you have to make a physical product. So, software should be patentable, and expensive machines may not be patentable, depending on how closely the cost to build them approaches or exceeds the design cost.
Is it? If so, why don't we have it already in products?
For the same reason we didn't have smartphones until processors, batteries, screens, etc were at a level to make smartphones possible.
Once we had sensors like the kinect, the necessity for good ui drives the innovation.
Kinect came out in Nov. 2010. It seems like you're admitting that it wasn't obvious until at least then, no?
Prove it - explain why it was so obvious that people already knew about it, but no one bothered making it.
Something doesn't need to exist for it to be obvious. I can make a smartphone that is some color that no one has ever used to make a smartphone. Should I be able to patent smartphones of a particular RGB value? Or was it obvious that it this was always possible to make a smartphone of any arbitrary color regardless of whether or when anyone actually did it?
Was it? Here's the thing - you already admitted this was valuable. If making a smartphone in gold and blue polka dots meant that your profit would increase and you knew it, wouldn't you do it? Of course you would, you're a smart guy who likes money.
Or, conversely, if making a smartphone in gold and blue polka dots meant that your profit would increase and you didn't know it, then that would explain why you didn't do it. So, when someone subsequently comes out with a gold and blue polkadot phone and their sales shoot up, you can't very well say "pff, that's obvious, I knew about that all along... I just didn't do it because I hate making money" and expect to be believed.
Why would you spend millions or billions of dollars to create and test a drug only to have some other company copy it and undercut you.
Why would you spend hundreds of thousands or millions on UI design to create and test a UI only to have some other company copy it and undercut you? In fact, why would you spend any money on research, if someone can just steal yours freely (and you can steal theirs)?
I don't understand how you think this rates a patent.
Actually, I'm trying to guide you towards addressing the patent claims, rather than some vague gist of the idea... The claims are the only part of the patent that matters, not the title, not the abstract, etc. In order to call the claims obvious, you have to show that all of the elements in the claims existed in the prior art and could be reasonably combined by someone of skill in the art. Saying "mice exist and can do gestures" is a useful first step, but the claims recite a sensor that receives "a set of multiple 3D coordinates representing a gesture by a hand positioned within a field of view of a sensing device" and I'm sure you'll readily agree that a mouse doesn't do that.
Using well-known protocols and scripts already out there in the world I rigged my son's laptop to wake when he walks into the room.
Did you do that before 2011?
This constitutes a gesture in 3D space by the loosest criteria. If you read my post, I said that the patent on the sensing device and related firmware is fair, as that is what is determining the discrete actions in 3D space.
Probably not after the Microsoft Kinect, actually.
However, patenting a response to an input which has very broad and very frequently used precedent is dubious at best.
Except that you haven't proven it... You've said mice exist, sure, but I'm sure you'll also admit that a mouse doesn't actually read on this. You've said there are well-known protocols and scripts and that it's very frequently used... But just saying "prior art exists" doesn't mean anything unless you can actually name that prior art: which protocols? Which scripts?
As soon as the kinect came out dozens of people starting working on how to make the gesture capability do everything (even the impractical) via gesture. So the idea is neither obscure nor non-obvious.
But was it at the time? The Kinect was released in Nov. 2010. This patent is from early 2011. It may be obvious now, but you can only prove that by showing prior art that existed at the time.
The code implementation will be unique and thus protected via copyright,
Copyright isn't useful for protecting code. See, e.g. Dream Heights/Tiny Tower, Farmville/Farm Town, Candy Crush Saga/dozens of similar games, MS Office/Open Office, etc., etc. It's great when people want that specific thing, like the latest Avengers movie rather than a Bollywood superhero movie, or Harry Potter rather than "Larry Kotter, Boy Wizard", but it's useless when the software is fungible.
... and the gestures may be enforceable via trademark or copyright.
Not sure if serious. You can't get a trademark or copyright on a gesture.
This patent ranks right up there with "swipe-to-unlock" which again mimics a mouse movement in a different medium, making it stupidly obvious.
And yet, no one had anything like it before swipe-to-unlock came out, and lots of people immediately copied it. That indicates it wasn't stupidly obvious prior to Apple's disclosure of it.
IF they did something super spiffy like authenticating the user via Fitbit, audible pacing of footsteps, and a gesture then the patent still would not be on the concept, it would be on the aggregation of the data in such a manner that it constitutes and unique representation of the user. Definitely patentable, but probably more profitable to keep under lock and key copyrighted.
As noted above, if you write your own code to do that, you don't violate copyright. Copyright is useless for 90% of software. It only works in cases where there are proprietary formats of data, so you need to get the specif
You'll notice that I was not arguing against patents in general. I was arguing that patents like *this* one do not drive innovation, specifically because "inventions" like this one are so obvious that they would have been invented without the incentive of a monopoly.
Is it? If so, why don't we have it already in products?
The question "is it more valuable to make this than not" drives innovation. Patents drive adding those innovations into the public domain, which eliminates the need for every competitor to waste time reinventing the same thing.
This particular "invention" would already be in the public domain by default had it not been patented because it is obvious.
Prove it - explain why it was so obvious that people already knew about it, but no one bothered making it.
This "invention" was already more valuable to make than not before the patent,
Then someone would have made it. Free money on the table, right? They already have the idea, it's valuable to make even without a patent, so you should be able to point to at least one product including it...
Unless, of course, it wasn't obvious.
I am for granting patents that actually drive innovation (i.e. the ones that turn inventions from being less profitable to make to more).
Patents only on things that aren't valuable to produce? Why would people buy them? Or are you suggesting that with a patent will also come a mandate forcing the public to buy products they don't want? Please, we don't do that in this c-... well, we don't do that for anything except insurance.
Just so you know... ppl have been doing this for a while using webcams or motion sensors or mice...
The sensing device, which is not part of the patent provides the input, essentially the patent boils down to "Move the mouse in an axis 20cm and the computer will unlock."
Mice are certainly sensing devices, but they don't receive "a set of multiple 3D coordinates representing a gesture by a hand positioned within a field of view of a sensing device" as recited by the patent claim.
By "doing this for a while", you may mean "doing something vaguely similar, but lacking the steps explicitly recited in the patent claim", which is why those don't invalidate the claim.
The software to interface with said sensing device should be copyrighted if the owner wishes that protection but the action of unlocking a computer with a sensor input, should not be patentable... because it is fracking obvious.
Sure, it is, because you just read a Slashdot story telling you the idea. If I tell you a joke, then turn around and tell you the setup again, the punchline is "obvious" because you just heard it. The question is not whether something is obvious after it has been explained to you, but whether it's obvious before. Or specifically, whether the invention was obvious at the time of filing the patent application, and not after you've read all about it.
The whole point of patents is to drive innovation. Being able to patent things like this is clearly not in the spirit of that goal.
Why not? Clearly, it's not so clear to Congress, so what's your reasoning as to why this is not in the spirit of driving innovation?
The question we should be asking is:
If a patent was not granted for this "invention" (i.e. a monopoly for selling this invention not granted), would it still have been invented (i.e. would a company still be willing to perform the R&D necessary to invent this invention without the reward of a monopoly).
It's pretty clear to me that the answer to this question is yes.
If this is the case, then granting a patent (i.e. a monopoly for selling this invention) actually stifles innovation.
Respectfully, that question is a bit naive. Patents aren't really about encouraging innovation, they're about encouraging public disclosure of innovations, as opposed to keeping them under trade secret or restrictive contracts. Without patents, would a company still invent this? Sure, it seems to be a commercially valuable advantage over a device lacking it. What would they do instead? Have purchasers sign non-reverse engineering contracts, non-disclosure agreements, restrictions on sales, etc. And those contracts could actually grant more rights than patents, since there's nothing to say they'd have to expire after 20 years or wouldn't include the first sale doctrine or patent exhaustion, nor could they be invalidated by prior art, etc., etc.
The question "is it more valuable to make this than not" drives innovation. Patents drive adding those innovations into the public domain, which eliminates the need for every competitor to waste time reinventing the same thing.
So this company commits fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, illegal conversion, grand theft, and extortion (and probably a litany of other crimes I can't think of off the top of my head), and all they're going to get is a finger wagging???!!
Saying that someone could be liable under U.S. law is not fraud, even if they're in Canada. Yes, if they decide to move tomorrow to the U.S., they could be sued.
A bigger issue is that you appear to just have publicly accused the company of all sorts of crimes (many of which, you know nothing about - illegal conversion, really?). Are you going to complain that you only get a finger wagging for libel?
I hereby sue you for breaking the English obscenity laws while you were sitting at home yesterday.
See the problem now?
Nope. You can bring a suit for anything you want. First, you'll have to serve me with notice. Second, you'll have to get a default judgement (which will be easy, because I'm not going to show up or pay anyone to show up). Third, you'll have to get an enforcement order, since I'm not going to voluntarily pay. Fourth, you'll have to wait for me to visit England to enforce that enforcement order. And Fifth, as soon as I do visit, I get the default judgement reversed and you lose at summary judgement. So, you're out the cost of all of those earlier motions and orders, plus, in England, as the losing party, you'd also have to pay my costs for step 5.
But this has nothing to do with international borders. Say I sue you in Mass. and you're in California. If you don't show up, I can get a default judgement, same as above. And when you do finally visit Mass. and I try to enforce it, you can get the default thrown out and we go to trial.
Slashdot Mirror
POssibly the moon is formed from 2 bodies colliding and before it could completely settle down into a round shape it froze with that ridge remaining?
Nah, it's clearly an equatorial mass driver that was covered over with rock to keep it safe from meteorites.
This guy's my hero - misuse of "comprised" is a pet peeve of mine.
Despite sounding vaguely similar to "composed", it's not a synonym. Comprised is a near-synonym for included, but implies totality. "The band comprised a guitarist, a bassist, and a drummer" means that was the entirety of the band. Since so few people actually understand this, I tend to avoid the word.
I believe you have that backwards. "Comprising" is open-ended, and means "including at least". "Consisting of" implies totality. At least in the legal world.
Just fyi, and you may be aware of this as you are getting mails both with & without the period. Gmail essentially ignores them so you can send a mail to yourname@gmail.com, your.name@gmail.com or y.ourna.m....e@gmail.com and they will all work just fine :)
Yep. OTOH, I also have a common firstnamelastname@gmail address, and I've replied to emails to the other me with a similar polite explanation, and get angry responses back that no, firstname.lastname is different.
Okay, sure it is... But then, how did I manage to reply to your email?
Your link makes no argument for why women are better at computer work. "And if it doesn't sound like women's work--well, it just is." So no, it doesn't make the same argument at all. I don't buy the original claim (for one thing, "jumping around quickly to different thoughts, problems, and topics" is actually quite useful), but your link fails to refute it.
Of course it fails to refute it, because neither proposition is true: women are neither inherently better nor worse at computer work. It's not like there's some dominant gene on the Y chromosome that makes men appreciate terminal windows more.
Genetically predisposed to be uninterested in CS. As in, hundreds of thousands of years of evolution created a genetic predisposition to be interested or not interested in a field that has only existed for half a century?
Just because the field has only existed for half a century doesn't mean that the predispositions aren't older than that. Humans are genetically predisposed to be better at riding a bike than a fish even though both have been around for much longer.
Yes, because, among other reasons, fish lack knees.
How many female professional race car drivers do you see?
For decades, women were not allowed to be professional race car drivers. Now, they're able to, and so there are now several, both in F1 and NASCAR. Are you going to suggest that women genetically evolved to become race car drivers over the past 80 years?
There are certain things about computers and cars that more boys than girls are attracted to.
Sure. For one, marketing. But you'd have to be crazy to suggest that that's due to genetics.
There are obvious exceptions like my daughter who likes sports and frogs more than her brothers but on average you will find more of one gender than the other attracted to certain activities and I don't see a problem with it as long as everyone is allowed to freely choose their own interests.
Yes, but again, that has nothing to do with a genetic predisposition. Now, if you were to say that you find more women than men menstruating or bearing children, or more men than women having color blindness, then you could point to a genetic predisposition. But to say that boys like computers because of genetics is just silly.
Not to mention the fact that most programming used to be done by women, back when it paid significantly less.
No one is inherently more intelligent about anything. The truth is boys go into computers because boys are interested in computers: experiments with small children under 2 years old have shown that small boys find interests more in trucks, and small girls prefer dolls. Small boys who do play with dolls in such experiments tend to make them fight; we call boys's dolls "action figures" for this reason. In both cases, the children select for what interests them inherently.
This happens to be almost 100% incorrect:
New research from the University of Western Sydney shows baby boys prefer objects with faces over machines, challenging the theory of an innate preference among babies for ‘girly’ or ‘macho’ toys.
Researchers from the MARCS Institute Babylab at the University of Western Sydney gauged the preferences of four and five month old babies by showing them pictures of male and female humans and dolls, as well as cars and stoves.
The study, published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, found that like baby girls, baby boys were more willing to engage with dolls than cars.
How about their pull their heads out of political correct land and realize male brains are better at logical computer tasks. Male and female brains process thoughts differently. This is known science! Female brains typically work well with relational thoughts and can piece multiple things together but lack solid focus on solving one individual problem. Male brains compartmentalize thoughts and like to process one thing to completion then move on instead of jumping around quickly to different thoughts, problems, or topics. Males are better at most computer work because of this and that's the end of it. Females don't work with computer science fields because they don't enjoy it and aren't good at it.
Lolz. Back in the 1960s, the same exact argument was made for why women were better at computer work. What's the difference between then and now? The amount that a computer programmer is paid compared to the minimum wage.
Are you trying to say that girls are genetically predisposed to be uninterested in CS? That doesn't seem right...
That's exactly what he's saying. I have 3 kids age 7-9. The boys love computers and video games. My girl won't touch a video game unless someone else is playing with her...
Genetically predisposed to be uninterested in CS. As in, hundreds of thousands of years of evolution created a genetic predisposition to be interested or not interested in a field that has only existed for half a century?
Along with your work, you provide a promise not to sue, giving up all your rights to the work in question. It's clearly illegal to do that with the intent of changing your mind later.
Well, since the armchair /. lawyers will soon descend upon your post spouting off about how you can't enforce anything without a contract, let's just go ahead and get this posted: Promissory Estoppel ;-)
However, as your link notes, the measure of recovery wouldn't be the same as if the contract existed, since there would've been no negotiation and awarding full use of the work would be unjust enrichment. Instead, a court would probably say that there are no royalties due for past infringement, but that you don't get an unlimited right going forward to keep using the work.
First your entire understanding is completely incorrect.
She initially claimed that a RO was needed becuase he was spreading nudes of her, while it was she who posted them publicly when working as a model. A) He did not spread the links (or rather nothing concrete can be found to link him), and B) they were distributed BEFORE the RO was issued; give they were used as justification for one.
Unless you are now arguing that action which promoted the issuance of a RO can then be used as evidence of violating it after issuance?
The police report you linked says that they were distributed in a podcast on 09/20/14. It also says the restraining order was issued on 09/16/14. Now, I'm no mathematician, but I do believe that 9/16 is before 9/20, not after.
Or are you arguing that the police report you provided is fake?
Secondly, I guess you missed the start of the second paragraph, wherein she claims Milo and Gjoni are part of some group whose purpose is to spread doxx information.
Nope, read it. You claimed - and I quote - she "claimed that he and Milo, are part of some professional doxxing organization." I responded that the word "professional" doesn't appear there. Are you now backpedaling on that and admitting that she's only claiming that he's part of a group that doxxes people? Or do you want to double down and claim that use of the word "organization" automatically means it's professional?
Third, if you simply listen to the podcast, it was not Gjoni discussing that information. KoP was, and Gjoni was just present. So even if the information was spread, it was not Gjoni spreading it. A RO may prevent Gjoni from discussing the matter but that does not hold him liable for when others do.
Do you have a copy of the transcript? I can't find one online, so I can't verify. Also, depending on the wording of the restraining order, a judge is still going to crack down on Gjoni if he tries to pull a "I didn't reveal her personal information, the person sitting to my right (reading the note I passed him) revealed her personal information".
Also in followup to this, Gjoni's Lawyer was then doxxed and threatened; and the doxxer is now being sued.
First, got a link? Second, I'm not sure how this is relevant to what we're discussing. Is there any claim that Quinn was the doxxer?
Incidentally, if by Gjoni's lawyer, you mean Mike Cernovich, I really hope he's not claiming to be Gjoni's lawyer, because he's not a member of the Massachusetts Bar, and unlicensed practice of law can get him huge sanctions.
RalphRetort has the rest of the links but I am opting not to share them directly due to doxxing issues.
I'm not sure what you mean by that. You can't provide a citation because you're afraid of being doxxed?
OR how as part of the gag order, she claimed that Gjoni spread internet links to nude pictures of her, while failing to mention these were images she had made public of her own volition, while working as a model/camgirl.
And claimed that he and Milo, are part of some professional doxxing organization, despite in reality they had never spoken prior to GG
http://theralphretort.com/wp-c...
*Police report obtained via FOIA
First, your link doesn't say what you claim it says. The word "professional" never appears anywhere in there, nor "paid", "compensation", or anything else that might imply it was a professional organization.
Second, the police report indicates that the restraining order forbid any posting of her personal information by Gjoni. But, as you admit, Gjoni spread internet links to nude pictures of her. Regardless of who put them up initially, it certainly seems like you're admitting he violated the restraining order.
Restraining orders are explicit orders to not do certain things. If you do them, you're in deep shiat, even if they seem to make no sense at the time. For example, when people with restraining orders who are told to stay away from each other due to a domestic fight later reconcile and get back together without first going to a court and having the order withdrawn go to jail. If the order tells Gjoni not to post any personal information about Quinn, and he posts a copy of a white pages entry naming her, he's still in violation of the order. There's no "sure, I posted personal information, but other people did too" or "sure I posted personal information, but it wasn't secret" defenses. You simply can't do it, or you're in violation.
No, that's been researched. GG is mostly left of center. This is authoritarian left (SJWs like Quinn, Alexander, Grayson, McIntosh, Chu, etc) vs libertarian left (GG).
Say what? GG's supporters include writers at Breitbart, Ed Morrisey at Hot Air, conservative Adam Baldwin, Christina Hoff Sommers, etc. This is Tea Party-style "libertarians" and conservatives against progressives.
Brianna Wu? Brianna "I don't know when I can return to my home [and spend the night and fall asleep without fear], from whence I am giving this interview [during the daytime with lots of people around]" Wu?
FTFY. HTH. HAND.
Anita has even openly stated that she hates video games.
[Citation needed]
An actual engineer would have at least figured out a way to make 1 optical drive read discs from both systems.
They're both SATA Blu-Ray drives. Seems like it should be possible, but would need a SATA data splitter (which doesn't exist), or a switch to flip all of the data pins between each motherboard. In SATA, that's only really 4 pins, since the other three are ground, so a 4-pole 2-way switch should do it... but you'd be killing the shielding, common mode noise rejection between pairs, etc. at the switch. So, while theoretically, it might work, in practice it may just spit out drive errors. At least one advantage is that the SATA spec includes up to a 1m cable length, and you'd only need about 10 centimeters, tops.
I'm pointing to the idea of popularity of an invention being nonobvious as an indicator that the idea was also nonobvious.
I don't see why the burden of proof is not on you for this claim.
First, because of the way the patent act is written - it says that if a patent application can't be shown to be obvious, then it will be issued. That makes sense logically, because proving that something is nonobvious after having disclosed it is going to be nigh-difficult if not impossible. What are you going to do, wipe everyone's memory and then quiz them?
Second, even disregarding that, I've already met the burden of proof - I provided evidence in the form of "you admitted this is valuable" and "this didn't exist". Together, that indicates it was probably not obvious, or someone would have done it. It's your turn to rebut it, with evidence, not just saying "it's clearly obvious".
And as of yet, you have pointed to no indicators as to whether something is obvious.
The indicator I am using is the metric that the invention in question could have been invented even if the patent had not been granted. We can never know this in the absolute sense that we can't change the past and see how it affects the future, but I think reasonable people can agree that a blue and gold polka dot smartphone could be invented even without a patent
Of course the invention in question could have been invented - it was invented, or else we wouldn't be talking about it. Your indicator is essentially "this was invented, therefore it could have been invented, and since it could have been invented, no one had to invent it because it was obvious". That circular logic applies to everything from the space shuttle to cancer vaccines.
(i.e. the R&D costs of figuring out how to do it are negligible compared to a phone of any other color)
The implementation costs are negligible... the R&D costs - figuring out that it is an improvement, doing user testing, etc., are quite high compared to the implementation costs... and, I believe, that ratio was your metric indicating it should be patentable.
Tell that to Zynga, or any of the indie designers they've ripped off.
If this were not true, then no one would ever design any games or software seeing as how unprofitable it would be.
Well, there's a lot of shovelware out there, and not much in the way of new designs, you'll notice. It's starting to become like Atari in the 80s.
On the contrary, it's pretty easy. [youtube.com]
Writing an application that mimics some very small subsection of a much larger UI is not very hard. If this was all there was to Apple's UI, then they *really* don't deserve a patent. This software is an "easy copy" of Apple's UI like how a picture of a Ferrari is an "easy copy" of a real Ferrari. Is it easy to copy a Ferrari? Maybe yes, maybe no, but a picture of a Ferrari is not proof that it is easy (unless you have a very low standard for what counts as a Ferrari).
However, once you can buy a Ferrari and take it apart, it's pretty easy to copy with a machine shop and some skilled workers. And since we're not talking about the engine, but the UI, it's even easier to make a body case of a Ferrari and build a fiberglass look-alike. I'd give a Hollywood special effects shop a week, tops.
Similarly, I'd give a team of Russian hackers a week or two to reverse engineer any UI you build, even if it took you months and months of trial and error and alternate designs to come up with the best one.
But they also come up with new aspects, which is why the UIs are evolving. Those new aspects that others copy, because they believe they're the best aspects, must not have been obvious, or they would already have been inco
I think you are confusing the idea of an invention being obvious and the idea of the popularity of an invention being obvious.
I am not saying that it is obvious whether any idea will be popular.
I'm pointing to the idea of popularity of an invention being nonobvious as an indicator that the idea was also nonobvious. And as of yet, you have pointed to no indicators as to whether something is obvious.
We are talking about copying the design of a piece of software, and incorporating it into your own software in order to sell. The cost of this is not negligible at all. In fact it is probably pretty close to the actual cost of designing it in the first place in many cases.
Tell that to Zynga, or any of the indie designers they've ripped off.
Go ask someone to recreate IOS or android or windows UI for use in your own product to sell. This cost will not be negligable. Nor can you just drag and drop some files to have that UI magically appear in your own application.
On the contrary, it's pretty easy.
All of these UIs have copied the best aspects (from their point of view) of the others, which is why there is a lot of co-evolution happening among UI design.
But they also come up with new aspects, which is why the UIs are evolving. Those new aspects that others copy, because they believe they're the best aspects, must not have been obvious, or they would already have been incorporated - since, as you say, they're acknowledged as the "best".
Was it? Here's the thing - you already admitted this was valuable. If making a smartphone in gold and blue polka dots meant that your profit would increase and you knew it, wouldn't you do it? Of course you would, you're a smart guy who likes money. Or, conversely, if making a smartphone in gold and blue polka dots meant that your profit would increase and you didn't know it, then that would explain why you didn't do it. So, when someone subsequently comes out with a gold and blue polkadot phone and their sales shoot up, you can't very well say "pff, that's obvious, I knew about that all along... I just didn't do it because I hate making money" and expect to be believed.
You seem to be reasserting the claim that something can not be obvious if no one has done it yet. It is this very claim that I am disputing.
While it may not be obvious that people will like a blue and gold polkadot phone, it should be plainly obvious that such a phone could be made and how it could be made, even if no one ever makes one.
Not exactly... I'm asserting the claim that if no one has done something yet and it's commercially valuable to do so, then it's likely not obvious. Evidence of that is the fact that if it was obvious, someone would have taken the free money. Because no one has, that implies no one thought of it.
You're disputing this by saying "no, it's plainly obvious." Well, that's a fine conclusion, but where's your evidence?
If X is the the price of R&D and Y is the price of copying it, we should allow patents on products with a high X:Y ratio.
Sure, let's go with that - the price of copying software is negligible, while the price of designing it is comparatively huge. In fact, the copying price is so small - a click and drag, in one scenario - that the ratio approaches or exceeds that of pharmaceuticals, where at least you have to make a physical product. So, software should be patentable, and expensive machines may not be patentable, depending on how closely the cost to build them approaches or exceeds the design cost.
Is it? If so, why don't we have it already in products?
For the same reason we didn't have smartphones until processors, batteries, screens, etc were at a level to make smartphones possible.
Once we had sensors like the kinect, the necessity for good ui drives the innovation.
Kinect came out in Nov. 2010. It seems like you're admitting that it wasn't obvious until at least then, no?
Prove it - explain why it was so obvious that people already knew about it, but no one bothered making it.
Something doesn't need to exist for it to be obvious. I can make a smartphone that is some color that no one has ever used to make a smartphone. Should I be able to patent smartphones of a particular RGB value? Or was it obvious that it this was always possible to make a smartphone of any arbitrary color regardless of whether or when anyone actually did it?
Was it? Here's the thing - you already admitted this was valuable. If making a smartphone in gold and blue polka dots meant that your profit would increase and you knew it, wouldn't you do it? Of course you would, you're a smart guy who likes money.
Or, conversely, if making a smartphone in gold and blue polka dots meant that your profit would increase and you didn't know it, then that would explain why you didn't do it.
So, when someone subsequently comes out with a gold and blue polkadot phone and their sales shoot up, you can't very well say "pff, that's obvious, I knew about that all along... I just didn't do it because I hate making money" and expect to be believed.
Why would you spend millions or billions of dollars to create and test a drug only to have some other company copy it and undercut you.
Why would you spend hundreds of thousands or millions on UI design to create and test a UI only to have some other company copy it and undercut you? In fact, why would you spend any money on research, if someone can just steal yours freely (and you can steal theirs)?
Hopefully, I'm not falling for the bait.
I don't understand how you think this rates a patent.
Actually, I'm trying to guide you towards addressing the patent claims, rather than some vague gist of the idea... The claims are the only part of the patent that matters, not the title, not the abstract, etc. In order to call the claims obvious, you have to show that all of the elements in the claims existed in the prior art and could be reasonably combined by someone of skill in the art. Saying "mice exist and can do gestures" is a useful first step, but the claims recite a sensor that receives "a set of multiple 3D coordinates representing a gesture by a hand positioned within a field of view of a sensing device" and I'm sure you'll readily agree that a mouse doesn't do that.
Using well-known protocols and scripts already out there in the world I rigged my son's laptop to wake when he walks into the room.
Did you do that before 2011?
This constitutes a gesture in 3D space by the loosest criteria. If you read my post, I said that the patent on the sensing device and related firmware is fair, as that is what is determining the discrete actions in 3D space.
Probably not after the Microsoft Kinect, actually.
However, patenting a response to an input which has very broad and very frequently used precedent is dubious at best.
Except that you haven't proven it... You've said mice exist, sure, but I'm sure you'll also admit that a mouse doesn't actually read on this. You've said there are well-known protocols and scripts and that it's very frequently used... But just saying "prior art exists" doesn't mean anything unless you can actually name that prior art: which protocols? Which scripts?
As soon as the kinect came out dozens of people starting working on how to make the gesture capability do everything (even the impractical) via gesture. So the idea is neither obscure nor non-obvious.
But was it at the time? The Kinect was released in Nov. 2010. This patent is from early 2011. It may be obvious now, but you can only prove that by showing prior art that existed at the time.
The code implementation will be unique and thus protected via copyright,
Copyright isn't useful for protecting code. See, e.g. Dream Heights/Tiny Tower, Farmville/Farm Town, Candy Crush Saga/dozens of similar games, MS Office/Open Office, etc., etc. It's great when people want that specific thing, like the latest Avengers movie rather than a Bollywood superhero movie, or Harry Potter rather than "Larry Kotter, Boy Wizard", but it's useless when the software is fungible.
... and the gestures may be enforceable via trademark or copyright.
Not sure if serious. You can't get a trademark or copyright on a gesture.
This patent ranks right up there with "swipe-to-unlock" which again mimics a mouse movement in a different medium, making it stupidly obvious.
And yet, no one had anything like it before swipe-to-unlock came out, and lots of people immediately copied it. That indicates it wasn't stupidly obvious prior to Apple's disclosure of it.
IF they did something super spiffy like authenticating the user via Fitbit, audible pacing of footsteps, and a gesture then the patent still would not be on the concept, it would be on the aggregation of the data in such a manner that it constitutes and unique representation of the user. Definitely patentable, but probably more profitable to keep under lock and key copyrighted.
As noted above, if you write your own code to do that, you don't violate copyright. Copyright is useless for 90% of software. It only works in cases where there are proprietary formats of data, so you need to get the specif
You'll notice that I was not arguing against patents in general. I was arguing that patents like *this* one do not drive innovation, specifically because "inventions" like this one are so obvious that they would have been invented without the incentive of a monopoly.
Is it? If so, why don't we have it already in products?
The question "is it more valuable to make this than not" drives innovation. Patents drive adding those innovations into the public domain, which eliminates the need for every competitor to waste time reinventing the same thing.
This particular "invention" would already be in the public domain by default had it not been patented because it is obvious.
Prove it - explain why it was so obvious that people already knew about it, but no one bothered making it.
This "invention" was already more valuable to make than not before the patent,
Then someone would have made it. Free money on the table, right? They already have the idea, it's valuable to make even without a patent, so you should be able to point to at least one product including it...
Unless, of course, it wasn't obvious.
I am for granting patents that actually drive innovation (i.e. the ones that turn inventions from being less profitable to make to more).
Patents only on things that aren't valuable to produce? Why would people buy them? Or are you suggesting that with a patent will also come a mandate forcing the public to buy products they don't want? Please, we don't do that in this c-... well, we don't do that for anything except insurance.
Just so you know... ppl have been doing this for a while using webcams or motion sensors or mice...
The sensing device, which is not part of the patent provides the input, essentially the patent boils down to "Move the mouse in an axis 20cm and the computer will unlock."
Mice are certainly sensing devices, but they don't receive "a set of multiple 3D coordinates representing a gesture by a hand positioned within a field of view of a sensing device" as recited by the patent claim.
By "doing this for a while", you may mean "doing something vaguely similar, but lacking the steps explicitly recited in the patent claim", which is why those don't invalidate the claim.
The software to interface with said sensing device should be copyrighted if the owner wishes that protection but the action of unlocking a computer with a sensor input, should not be patentable... because it is fracking obvious.
Sure, it is, because you just read a Slashdot story telling you the idea. If I tell you a joke, then turn around and tell you the setup again, the punchline is "obvious" because you just heard it. The question is not whether something is obvious after it has been explained to you, but whether it's obvious before. Or specifically, whether the invention was obvious at the time of filing the patent application, and not after you've read all about it.
The whole point of patents is to drive innovation. Being able to patent things like this is clearly not in the spirit of that goal.
Why not? Clearly, it's not so clear to Congress, so what's your reasoning as to why this is not in the spirit of driving innovation?
The question we should be asking is:
If a patent was not granted for this "invention" (i.e. a monopoly for selling this invention not granted), would it still have been invented (i.e. would a company still be willing to perform the R&D necessary to invent this invention without the reward of a monopoly).
It's pretty clear to me that the answer to this question is yes.
If this is the case, then granting a patent (i.e. a monopoly for selling this invention) actually stifles innovation.
Respectfully, that question is a bit naive. Patents aren't really about encouraging innovation, they're about encouraging public disclosure of innovations, as opposed to keeping them under trade secret or restrictive contracts. Without patents, would a company still invent this? Sure, it seems to be a commercially valuable advantage over a device lacking it. What would they do instead? Have purchasers sign non-reverse engineering contracts, non-disclosure agreements, restrictions on sales, etc. And those contracts could actually grant more rights than patents, since there's nothing to say they'd have to expire after 20 years or wouldn't include the first sale doctrine or patent exhaustion, nor could they be invalidated by prior art, etc., etc.
The question "is it more valuable to make this than not" drives innovation. Patents drive adding those innovations into the public domain, which eliminates the need for every competitor to waste time reinventing the same thing.
So this company commits fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, illegal conversion, grand theft, and extortion (and probably a litany of other crimes I can't think of off the top of my head), and all they're going to get is a finger wagging???!!
Saying that someone could be liable under U.S. law is not fraud, even if they're in Canada. Yes, if they decide to move tomorrow to the U.S., they could be sued.
A bigger issue is that you appear to just have publicly accused the company of all sorts of crimes (many of which, you know nothing about - illegal conversion, really?). Are you going to complain that you only get a finger wagging for libel?
I hereby sue you for breaking the English obscenity laws while you were sitting at home yesterday.
See the problem now?
Nope. You can bring a suit for anything you want. First, you'll have to serve me with notice. Second, you'll have to get a default judgement (which will be easy, because I'm not going to show up or pay anyone to show up). Third, you'll have to get an enforcement order, since I'm not going to voluntarily pay. Fourth, you'll have to wait for me to visit England to enforce that enforcement order. And Fifth, as soon as I do visit, I get the default judgement reversed and you lose at summary judgement. So, you're out the cost of all of those earlier motions and orders, plus, in England, as the losing party, you'd also have to pay my costs for step 5.
But this has nothing to do with international borders. Say I sue you in Mass. and you're in California. If you don't show up, I can get a default judgement, same as above. And when you do finally visit Mass. and I try to enforce it, you can get the default thrown out and we go to trial.