You don't patent a program, you patent an algorithm. Translated into the book, it means, you don't patent the text, but the plot. That is, while e.g. the Harry Potter books are copyrighted, a patent would look like "A story telling about someone who learns magic" with additional claims like "As claim 1, but where the main character initially didn't know he's a wizard." Every book which tells about someone learning magic would be infringing, even if it had no other similarity to Harry Potter.
Note that both are unrelated and may apply independently. Say, person A holds the patent on stories of learning magic, and person B holds the copyright on a specific story, covered by the patent (which may or may not be infringing depending on if he bought a patent license). Now say you copy parts of B's story. Then you clearly violate B's copyright, but you probably independently infringe on A's patent (unless you only copy parts of the text not related to learning magic). On the other hand, you may infringe on the patent without even having heared about it, by just writing your own story about someone learning magic. OTOH, if you happened to write an exact copy of Harry Potter on your own without ever having been exposed to the original, you'd not be breaking copyright (although you'd probably have a very hard time to prove it).
Well that's where my secret patent comes in: a method for naming a collection of code starting with the letter L and ending with the letter X. Let's see you get around that one!
Now I understand why RMS insists on calling it GNU/Linux. It's just circumvention of your patent! (GNU/Linux starts with G, not L).
Also if you can't fix it, e.g. due to missing knowledge, you can still help by saying (on the discussion page) why it's hard to understand. Note that statint that it is hard to understand often is not enough: The authour may have considered the text understandable, and just telling him that it is not doesn't help him. Tell him why it is not understandable.
For example, take the Epigenetics example from the article. To me (despite not being a biologist) the first sentence seems absolutely readable, and indeed I wouldn't have guessed that this sentence is a problem to someone else. Now, obviously it's a problem for the article writer. I agree that the other cited introduction is better, though. But not because I consider it more understandable, but because it contains objectivly, more information: It also explains what those additional inheritance methods are. So I conclude that the author of the article probably had a problem with the introduction because it was a bit too abstract.
Now, assuming this is the case, he could have noted on the discussion page that this introduction needs to be made more understandable. But simply writing "I cannot understand the first paragraph, please fix this." won't help a little bit. The author surely considered it as understandable as I do, and would only wonder what should there be non-understandable. OTOH if you write e.g. "what do you mean with 'do not directly relate to the inheritance of collections of genes, or soft inheritance.'?" then the author knows that this is where your problem lies, and can improve on that specific part.
Of course the author of the article (the Epidemix one) clearly doesn't meet that constructive criticism standard either: He only notes that he can't understand the original, and offers a better alternative which most likely couldn't be used due to copyright concerns, but doesn't say where his problems lie. This can only cause one of two reactions: Either he is considered stupid, or just trolling, because the introduction is "obviously" understandable, or one accepts that he can't understand it, but shrugs because one does not know how to improve on that situation (probably assuming that an improvement isn't possible because of the subject).
Note that I also only can guess where the author's problem with the introduction lies. Maybe I guessed wrong (and then, if I changed the Wikipedia text on that presumption, it might even not actually be an improvement).
On the second example, the author is more helpful: Here he tells where he encountered problems: At the "continuum mechanics". Probably a short one-sentence explanation of what continuum mechanics is would have helped him here (and it should probably not be mentioned before actually saying what fluid dynamics itself is). In this case, the criticism was actually constructive, and it's clear what has to be done to improve the situation.
The key point is: Even if you have no clue about the subject, you can still help Wikipedia through constructive criticism on discussion pages. Criticism is helpfull if it is constructive, i.e. it gives information about why something is bad (or at least not as good as it could be). You can help by giving constructive criticism. Criticism is unhelpful (and even has a negative impact) if it is unconstructive, i.e. you only say that you consider something bad.
It doesn't actually say in the article, but Ubuntu doesn't install lots of software by default.
I guess Windows also doesn't install e.g. AOL software by default. Which doesn't mean you'll not find it preinstalled on your newly bought computer with preinstalled Windows.
Note, however,
that you probably
will not be able to write long comments on slashdot
this way
because
the lameness filter
surely will complain about
the short
average line length
if you have
too many lines
in this style.
The solution
to this problem
is,
of course,
simple:
Just turn around
your wide screen
by 90 degrees,
so now it is
more tall than wide, and display your texts
turned around
by 90 degrees
as well,
so it has
the correct direction
on your
rotated screen.
Then your monitor
will have the
ideal shape
for this type
of text.
The only downside is
that for notebooks
this will make
usage of the keyboard
much harder.
First, the companies are interested not only in common trends. They are probably not interested in the fact that your name is John Doe, but they are surely interested that the current viewer has bought lots of computer hardware (thus you might be able to sell some new stuff to him), and shows mainly interest to Linux (don't waste advertising space for Windows products). They are probably interested if the current visitor tends to spend lots of money on single items (show more ads for single, expensive things) or tends to buy many cheap items (show more ads for cheap items). They might be interested in the fact that the current user more often clicks on ads on the top of the page, and regularly blocks Flash ads. It may be worthwhile to know if the current visitor recently bought a BluRay drive (show ads for BluRay disks) or a HD-DVD drive (show ads for HD-DVDs). It also might be useful to know something about his financial status (don't show expensive items to someone who has lots of debt; first, they'll likely not buy them, second, if they buy them, there's an increased probability that they won't pay them).
You see, there's a lot of things the company might want to know about you, which makes a pretty neat. And besides, if the data is collected anyway, and some government agency wants it, what makes you so sure that it will not get it (either by the company providing it on request even if it wouldn't be obliqued to, or due to some laws which allow the government to just forcefully get that data, or even through simply buying it from the company)?
Well, Bill Gates knew this all the time. He even gave a rule of thumb to decide when there's too much data stored about you, so it is time to delete some of it: 640K ought to be enough for anybody.
Very nice is this above the comment submission box:
If you don't have anything worthwhile to say, don't say it. If people continue to abuse this feature, I will have to remove it.
Slashdot Mirror
But obviously you don't know the difference.
You don't patent a program, you patent an algorithm. Translated into the book, it means, you don't patent the text, but the plot. That is, while e.g. the Harry Potter books are copyrighted, a patent would look like "A story telling about someone who learns magic" with additional claims like "As claim 1, but where the main character initially didn't know he's a wizard." Every book which tells about someone learning magic would be infringing, even if it had no other similarity to Harry Potter.
Note that both are unrelated and may apply independently. Say, person A holds the patent on stories of learning magic, and person B holds the copyright on a specific story, covered by the patent (which may or may not be infringing depending on if he bought a patent license). Now say you copy parts of B's story. Then you clearly violate B's copyright, but you probably independently infringe on A's patent (unless you only copy parts of the text not related to learning magic). On the other hand, you may infringe on the patent without even having heared about it, by just writing your own story about someone learning magic. OTOH, if you happened to write an exact copy of Harry Potter on your own without ever having been exposed to the original, you'd not be breaking copyright (although you'd probably have a very hard time to prove it).
Now I understand why RMS insists on calling it GNU/Linux. It's just circumvention of your patent! (GNU/Linux starts with G, not L).
Even the devil has satanist cults. Where are Microsoft's satanists?
Also if you can't fix it, e.g. due to missing knowledge, you can still help by saying (on the discussion page) why it's hard to understand. Note that statint that it is hard to understand often is not enough: The authour may have considered the text understandable, and just telling him that it is not doesn't help him. Tell him why it is not understandable.
For example, take the Epigenetics example from the article. To me (despite not being a biologist) the first sentence seems absolutely readable, and indeed I wouldn't have guessed that this sentence is a problem to someone else. Now, obviously it's a problem for the article writer. I agree that the other cited introduction is better, though. But not because I consider it more understandable, but because it contains objectivly, more information: It also explains what those additional inheritance methods are. So I conclude that the author of the article probably had a problem with the introduction because it was a bit too abstract.
Now, assuming this is the case, he could have noted on the discussion page that this introduction needs to be made more understandable. But simply writing "I cannot understand the first paragraph, please fix this." won't help a little bit. The author surely considered it as understandable as I do, and would only wonder what should there be non-understandable. OTOH if you write e.g. "what do you mean with 'do not directly relate to the inheritance of collections of genes, or soft inheritance.'?" then the author knows that this is where your problem lies, and can improve on that specific part.
Of course the author of the article (the Epidemix one) clearly doesn't meet that constructive criticism standard either: He only notes that he can't understand the original, and offers a better alternative which most likely couldn't be used due to copyright concerns, but doesn't say where his problems lie. This can only cause one of two reactions: Either he is considered stupid, or just trolling, because the introduction is "obviously" understandable, or one accepts that he can't understand it, but shrugs because one does not know how to improve on that situation (probably assuming that an improvement isn't possible because of the subject).
Note that I also only can guess where the author's problem with the introduction lies. Maybe I guessed wrong (and then, if I changed the Wikipedia text on that presumption, it might even not actually be an improvement).
On the second example, the author is more helpful: Here he tells where he encountered problems: At the "continuum mechanics". Probably a short one-sentence explanation of what continuum mechanics is would have helped him here (and it should probably not be mentioned before actually saying what fluid dynamics itself is). In this case, the criticism was actually constructive, and it's clear what has to be done to improve the situation.
The key point is: Even if you have no clue about the subject, you can still help Wikipedia through constructive criticism on discussion pages. Criticism is helpfull if it is constructive, i.e. it gives information about why something is bad (or at least not as good as it could be). You can help by giving constructive criticism. Criticism is unhelpful (and even has a negative impact) if it is unconstructive, i.e. you only say that you consider something bad.
Do you know the smell the moon cheese would have made in the space capsule during return to earth? If you knew, you'd not ask why they avoided that.
I'm sure the pirates of the internet will help him in getting that movie in HD without the need for a Blu-Ray player.
Are you sure that you don't already have The Matrix in high definition and even immersive 3D?
But he assumed the Estonian would use a Linux machine, so he at least attributed some intelligence to them!
No, Intel would never promote a rival architecture!
It seems so.
I guess Windows also doesn't install e.g. AOL software by default. Which doesn't mean you'll not find it preinstalled on your newly bought computer with preinstalled Windows.
So maybe the European constitution failed in France because it was badly formatted? :-)
Don't forget that due to the shorter line lengths, there's much more horiziontal space to advertise on.
Indeed, texts on the net could be much more readable if all browsers would consistently support the blink tag.
Note, however,
that you probably
will not be able to
write long comments on slashdot
this way
because
the lameness filter
surely will complain about
the short
average line length
if you have
too many lines
in this style.
The solution
to this problem
is,
of course,
simple:
Just turn around
your wide screen
by 90 degrees,
so now it is
more tall than wide,
and display your texts
turned around
by 90 degrees
as well,
so it has
the correct direction
on your
rotated screen.
Then your monitor
will have the
ideal shape
for this type
of text.
The only downside is
that for notebooks
this will make
usage of the keyboard
much harder.
Well,
to me
the new format
looks almost
like a poem.
Maybe
this is just
a way
to make
more poetic texts.
This story is about dark matter, not about Uranus or black holes!
DCE = Digital Cracker Entertainment?
Digital Customer Extortion?
Digital Corporate Evil?
Dissatisfying Consumer Experience?
Does that mean everyone who used the "Cancel" button goes to hell?
Freedom is slavery.
Restriction is empowerment.
Yes, fits perfectly.
First, the companies are interested not only in common trends. They are probably not interested in the fact that your name is John Doe, but they are surely interested that the current viewer has bought lots of computer hardware (thus you might be able to sell some new stuff to him), and shows mainly interest to Linux (don't waste advertising space for Windows products). They are probably interested if the current visitor tends to spend lots of money on single items (show more ads for single, expensive things) or tends to buy many cheap items (show more ads for cheap items). They might be interested in the fact that the current user more often clicks on ads on the top of the page, and regularly blocks Flash ads. It may be worthwhile to know if the current visitor recently bought a BluRay drive (show ads for BluRay disks) or a HD-DVD drive (show ads for HD-DVDs). It also might be useful to know something about his financial status (don't show expensive items to someone who has lots of debt; first, they'll likely not buy them, second, if they buy them, there's an increased probability that they won't pay them).
You see, there's a lot of things the company might want to know about you, which makes a pretty neat. And besides, if the data is collected anyway, and some government agency wants it, what makes you so sure that it will not get it (either by the company providing it on request even if it wouldn't be obliqued to, or due to some laws which allow the government to just forcefully get that data, or even through simply buying it from the company)?
"[T]he problem with reading papers electronically is that they can also read you."
Wow, a Soviet Russia joke directly in the summary!
Well, Bill Gates knew this all the time. He even gave a rule of thumb to decide when there's too much data stored about you, so it is time to delete some of it: 640K ought to be enough for anybody.