It's not what you say, necessarily, it's the way you say it.
Flamebait presupposes all other arguments to be weak, it is fundamentalist, and usually makes some statement that other people holding disparate views will find inflammatory.
Of course disagreement is part of it.
For example in the parent post: "wasting my time trying to convert 'em to the baby Jesus" is an unguarded attack which has been universalised. The presupposition is that Christians are wasting their time. Better would be to say that the poster thinks Christians are wasting their time.
The poster could have said "I believe it is a waste of time to convert aliens to Christianity". I would disagree with that but I wouldn't call it flamebait - I think this post is flamebait.
Another clever turn of phrase is to say "the baby jesus". Whilst members of the Christian faith believe that Jesus birth is important it is not the crucial point of Jesus life. Indeed many non-christians (Muslims, some Hindus, some atheists,...) believe that Jesus' teachings as an adult are highly worthwhile [though how they get round him saying he's God... but that's for another argument!].
By saying "baby jesus" this is intimating that Jesus only import [the only thing you'd tell alien life about] is as a baby and thus you are saying, allbeit in an implicit veiled manner, that those who respect his teachings are misguided.
You'll probably think I'm reading too much into it... maybe you think this is flamebait? Please give us some enlightment on that if you do!?!
The great thing about maths from a 'learning' point of view (later on in your maths career at least) is that you can miss loads and just work it out. It's all interconnected in a way humanities subjects aren't... if I can't remember the formula for the volume of a solid shape I can work it out from first principles...
I know you're joking but... a "pot with a whole in the top" is anticipated by:
salt pots pepper pots chamber pots plant pots saucepans mugs flower vases... et cetera
The claim has to be specific to differentiate your invention from these pieces of prior art. There's only a limited amount of time to search "all the disclosures in the world " (not just documents, video, audio, instantiations,...) so the rule of thumb is probably intended to say if it's not got a handful of words it's probably anticipated by something.
A spaghetti drainer: An arctuate planar member proportioned for fitting at least partly over the opening of a cooking vessel wherein the member has at least one hole to allow the free passage of a liquid and prevent the passage of solid materials suspended in said liquid. [not bad for a first try?!]
Just a quick gedanken... what will happen when/if memorised images can be retrieved from the brain (a la a whole bunch of movies / scifi books)... how will such copying be controlled then?
I maybe off-topic but I'm convinced that kids (big and small) pick on each other for whatever is different, if you're a different colour, height, weight, talk differently or have any other characteristic which the majority do not possess (intelligence??) then that will be used against you... these parents are actually helping as being picked on for using Linux isn't so hard to cope with as being picked on for your hair colour, speech impediment or goofy teeth. IMHO.
So suck on that you ginger-braniac-four-eyed-northerner...
In Britain we have fair dealing, but it is quite restricted in scope, use appears to be limited to less than a "substantial part", ie if you can recognise the track from the clip it's substantial! Journalists it seems can do what they like (Copyright-wise) and claim it's research for a story.
Do I always need permission to copy or use copyright material? No, there are certain exceptions to the rights given to the copyright owner. For example, limited use of works may be possible for non-commercial research and private study, criticism or review, reporting current events, judicial proceedings and teaching in schools. But if you are copying large amounts of material and/or making multiple copies then you may still need permission. Also it is generally necessary to include an acknowledgement of the name of the copyright work and its author.
But if I've bought something, can't I use it however I like? Just buying a copy of a book, CD, video, computer program, etc. does not necessarily give you the right to make further copies (even for private use) or play or show them in public. The right to do these things will generally remain with the copyright owner, whose permission you would need. You should note that photocopying a work, scanning a work to produce an electronic copy and downloading a copy of a work which is in an electronic form (eg. on a CD-ROM or an on-line database) all involve copying the work so that permission to copy is generally needed.
because it's money that puts food on the table and a roof over the head
No it's not, a few people have said this. I think you're wrong
Food is grown from seeds, using water, organic matter (plus chemicals for most people, I prefer "organic"!) and a great deal of labour.
Roofs are made from clay materials mined from the earth and processed by people, along with wood (grown similarly to food, unless it's "virgin forest") which is again processed by people.
Conclusion: it is a combination of natural resources and people that "puts food on the table and a roof over the head". Consider for example many families without money that have food and dwellings by virtue of their own labour (most of these we would call aboriginal groups, rainforest indians et al.).
Money is an abstracted form of barter, an exchange medium by which the worth of our own labours is compared against the worth of others. Sadly, like much else, this has been corrupted by further abstraction so that those producing worth are not compared with equal measure. Also those producing little worth (for example people gambling on futures markets) are considered to have great worth simply because they have a lot of money, when in fact they add little to society (by their work)*.
* - of course they could be using the funds benevolently etc., etc.,...
Copyright IMHO is not the perfect tool, neither are patents. Don't ask me what is...
[ok do!] * Something short term (5 years perhaps) in keeping with the pace of change in the field so the tech is still worth using when the monopoly expires. * The "if you didn't actually copy it's OK" feature of copyright would be retained. * Working source code disclosure (in an electronic form) would be a part of it.... that's about as far as I go... probably totally unworkable too!!
I may be wrong, can't check am at work (IE only... except Netscape4!!), but if you hit F11 and go to full-screen mode the ads aren't shown... if you use mouse-gestures this works fine.
... not wanting to be cruel, but isn't that just a CD (AOL?)... small flat disc with a hole in centre, about 6" [where did I read that] made of aluminium, bet it has a handy plastic coating...
[PS: CDs are only about 5 inches but can't remember where I read it was 6. Is it flat> It looks like it in the picture, how's it work if it's flat?]
Well... http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PrimeNumber.html gives some good detail on this issue.
Not wanting to sound like a squabbling schoolboy (!) but as it's a matter of definition, if I wish to say it is prime I can - if it's good enough for Goldbach it's good enough for me!!
PS: I do have a degree in Theoretical Physics and Mathematics, not that this qualifies me or anything... or maybe it does. Anyway, I don't necessarily consider one a prime - I'm feeling argumentative - but my interest lies in the notions of theorem and conjecture and how they, along with many postulates and hypothese, are accepted as true by the wider public. So... basically I'm into 'truth'. Phew, what a long postscript....
IANAPL but from what I understand the intention of the patents directive is to clarify the current position of allowing software patents that provide a "technical contribution", ie have a novel "technial effect" in a non-excluded field.
This sort of thing (VFAT filenames) is probably only just inside the borderline.
US5579517 - has no WO (world) nor EP (europe)equivalent, and so can't be enforced in EP.
US5745902 A = EP0578205 A - the EP here is quite different in scope (which is dep on the claims only), this includes restriction to devices with an OS and some detail about B-trees (what are they?) and the different naming of files by applications and the OS. If you're not doing all those things you're OK.
US5758352 A - no WO/EP equivalent
US6286013 B - no WO/EP equivalent
Also in GB (ie UK + Northern Ireland) you can't simply wait until your technology gets adopted by everyone and then spring them for royalties. You have to be consistent - if you've let people get away with it knowingly it's tough.
Seems this is all about handling the longnames allowed in Win95... is this really important to flash devices?
[PS: It's possible I didn't find the equivalents...
ooops
There's EP0618540 (EP - DE,GB,FR) - see http://l2.espacenet.com/espacenet/bnsviewer?CY=ep& LG=en&DB=EPD&PN=EP0618540&ID=EP+++0618540B1+I+
Other than a tax audit, I can't imagine I would ever need to look at them after they have been paid. Same thing for receipts and invoices, they go in the box.
Funny, not hilarious, we were burgled (sp?) recently - the insurance company wanted original documents for all the items taken, original receipts... I had most of them, going back about 5 years, and even knew where they were... this is probably 'helped' by the fact I don't have much disposable income.
Thing is the insurance folk probably wouldn't accept a scanned image (even if it was third party verified in some way!?).
In UK Patents Act (Section 40(2)(c) if you must know) an employee can 'sue' for extra compensation when they invent something that provides "outstanding benefit" to their employer and the employer hasn't fairly compensated the employee (eg. they just got their wage and the employer made millions off the invention).
It's not about the quantity it's about the frequency.
2.4GHz microwave radiation causes water molecules to resonate (I can't remember whether it's the bond angle or length at this frequency - this is how microwave ovens work, I digress). We humans are mainly water. Hence microwaves _at_the_right_frequency_ have an effect on our molecules too.
So microwaves at _this_frequency_ are a concern. But low frequency radio waves are not. It's just like the whole sun-screen (suntan lotion) thing. As long as you block the UV rays you're OK. You don't need to block all light frequencies.
Evidence is limited and what evidence there is suggests negligible effects... but you choose the risk in your own home.
A wifi network is pervasive and always on. Would you sit your child in front of a working microwave oven all day?
Also, assuming the folk are naively using equipement that operates at this frequency and assuming that this radiation is damaging. That doesn't mean that when they know about something that is spitting out this frequency then they can't complain. It just means they need to be educated a little about the other dangers. [Remember assumptions, I'm hypothesising here].
Someone already mentioned a Scooter... over a year ago we ditched our car and my wife and I got a Scooter (a Piaggio Skipper ST125).
Road Tax is about 18 pounds-sterling, it's got a four stroke petrol engine that does c. 80mpg. The back-box and underseat storage provides a good deal of space for shopping. Top speed about 65mph. Parks almost anywhere. You need to do a CBT to ride a 125 (with L plates) but can ride a 50cc with only a full car license.
All in all I reckon it's quite a nice way to get to work. I still enjoy a nice long car journey, occasionally, courteousy of our local hire firm. The scooter can get a little cold/wet in winter but I (usually!!) prefer that to being closeted away in a car.
It seems that caffeineboy (along with loads of others) is on to something.
Google does seem to have been taken over with commercial sites and with 'false' linked pages that are only used to improve the page ranking (Googlebombs? - I'm not really up on such things).
What I'd like to see is some more human input into the search process.
Either:
1) You type in your terms and get a list of links back, you follow a link - which creates a google pop-under page (or similar using frames, according to user preference) - and find it is unrelated to what you wanted to find. You click on the pop under and mod the page down. Now the secret is in using the mod points. When a certain level has been reached a trigger is set which causes human intervention. A person looks at the page, sees if the moderation is warranted and acts accordingly... eg removes the page/subdomain from google for violating good practice and annoying googles users (they have a virtual monopoly, they should be able to get away with it).
2) Introduce a google meta-tag (like http://www.icra.org) have. The meta-tag has a classification attached. Any violations and your site is dropped! (again, a "this site violates it's google-tag and should be removed -voting system is needed).You don't have to use the meta-tag put it improves page rankings. One of the classification points is eg commercial="yes" (buying or selling anything)... you can come up with your own suggestions for others, they must however be objective.
In the conclusions they appear to be saying that some new interaction is happening due to ('mediated by') exchange of a light gauge boson (translation: low-energy force-carrying integer-spin-particle)
Alternatively a new heavy fermion (neutrinos are fermionic, spin-1/2) mediates in the interaction: their words "could be responsible". So you might not be far off (if there second guess is correct).
Start talking Nobel prizes when CERN/Fermilab find either of these particles.
[... I've not done any particle physics for 5 years so this could be baloney.]
Slashdot Mirror
It's not what you say, necessarily, it's the way you say it.
...) believe that Jesus' teachings as an adult are highly worthwhile [though how they get round him saying he's God ... but that's for another argument!].
... maybe you think this is flamebait? Please give us some enlightment on that if you do!?!
Flamebait presupposes all other arguments to be weak, it is fundamentalist, and usually makes some statement that other people holding disparate views will find inflammatory.
Of course disagreement is part of it.
For example in the parent post: "wasting my time trying to convert 'em to the baby Jesus" is an unguarded attack which has been universalised. The presupposition is that Christians are wasting their time. Better would be to say that the poster thinks Christians are wasting their time.
The poster could have said "I believe it is a waste of time to convert aliens to Christianity". I would disagree with that but I wouldn't call it flamebait - I think this post is flamebait.
Another clever turn of phrase is to say "the baby jesus". Whilst members of the Christian faith believe that Jesus birth is important it is not the crucial point of Jesus life. Indeed many non-christians (Muslims, some Hindus, some atheists,
By saying "baby jesus" this is intimating that Jesus only import [the only thing you'd tell alien life about] is as a baby and thus you are saying, allbeit in an implicit veiled manner, that those who respect his teachings are misguided.
You'll probably think I'm reading too much into it
The great thing about maths from a 'learning' point of view (later on in your maths career at least) is that you can miss loads and just work it out. It's all interconnected in a way humanities subjects aren't ... if I can't remember the formula for the volume of a solid shape I can work it out from first principles ...
YMMV! (alot)
I know you're joking but ... a "pot with a whole in the top" is anticipated by :
... et cetera
salt pots
pepper pots
chamber pots
plant pots
saucepans
mugs
flower vases
The claim has to be specific to differentiate your invention from these pieces of prior art. There's only a limited amount of time to search "all the disclosures in the world " (not just documents, video, audio, instantiations,...) so the rule of thumb is probably intended to say if it's not got a handful of words it's probably anticipated by something.
A spaghetti drainer:
An arctuate planar member proportioned for fitting at least partly over the opening of a cooking vessel wherein the member has at least one hole to allow the free passage of a liquid and prevent the passage of solid materials suspended in said liquid. [not bad for a first try?!]
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0085271/ "Brainstorm"
Found it! What an excellent researcher, eh!?
It's been done, knock yourself out! ... I can't remember the name of the film ... googling turns up ...
http://www.braintec.info/ (real life???)
Also, you might like "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" which is sort of the reverse scenario:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338013/
Just a quick gedanken ... what will happen when/if memorised images can be retrieved from the brain (a la a whole bunch of movies / scifi books) ... how will such copying be controlled then?
I maybe off-topic but I'm convinced that kids (big and small) pick on each other for whatever is different, if you're a different colour, height, weight, talk differently or have any other characteristic which the majority do not possess (intelligence??) then that will be used against you ... these parents are actually helping as being picked on for using Linux isn't so hard to cope with as being picked on for your hair colour, speech impediment or goofy teeth. IMHO.
...
So suck on that you ginger-braniac-four-eyed-northerner
I don't have to keep emailing myself small bits of information
...?
Why not use your slashdot journal
This register story gives the situation.
In Britain we have fair dealing, but it is quite restricted in scope, use appears to be limited to less than a "substantial part", ie if you can recognise the track from the clip it's substantial! Journalists it seems can do what they like (Copyright-wise) and claim it's research for a story.
The UKPO has this to say:
No it's not, a few people have said this. I think you're wrong
Food is grown from seeds, using water, organic matter (plus chemicals for most people, I
prefer "organic"!) and a great deal of labour.
Roofs are made from clay materials mined from the earth and processed by people, along with wood (grown similarly to food, unless it's "virgin forest") which is again processed by people.
Conclusion: it is a combination of natural resources and people that "puts food on the table and a roof over the head". Consider for example many families without money that have food and dwellings by virtue of their own labour (most of these we would call aboriginal groups, rainforest indians et al.).
Money is an abstracted form of barter, an exchange medium by which the worth of our own labours is compared against the worth of others. Sadly, like much else, this has been corrupted by further abstraction so that those producing worth are not compared with equal measure. Also those producing little worth (for example people gambling on futures markets) are considered to have great worth simply because they have a lot of money, when in fact they add little to society (by their work)*.
...
* - of course they could be using the funds benevolently etc., etc.,
Copyright IMHO is not the perfect tool, neither are patents. Don't ask me what is ...
... that's about as far as I go ... probably totally unworkable too!!
[ok do!]
* Something short term (5 years perhaps) in keeping with the pace of change in the field so the tech is still worth using when the monopoly expires.
* The "if you didn't actually copy it's OK" feature of copyright would be retained.
* Working source code disclosure (in an electronic form) would be a part of it.
[I'm a patent practitioner]
I may be wrong, can't check am at work (IE only ... except Netscape4!!), but if you hit F11 and go to full-screen mode the ads aren't shown ... if you use mouse-gestures this works fine.
... not wanting to be cruel, but isn't that just a CD (AOL?) ... small flat disc with a hole in centre, about 6" [where did I read that] made of aluminium, bet it has a handy plastic coating ...
[PS: CDs are only about 5 inches but can't remember where I read it was 6. Is it flat> It looks like it in the picture, how's it work if it's flat?]
Well ... http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PrimeNumber.html gives some good detail on this issue.
... or maybe it does. Anyway, I don't necessarily consider one a prime - I'm feeling argumentative - but my interest lies in the notions of theorem and conjecture and how they, along with many postulates and hypothese, are accepted as true by the wider public. So ... basically I'm into 'truth'. Phew, what a long postscript ....
Not wanting to sound like a squabbling schoolboy (!) but as it's a matter of definition, if I wish to say it is prime I can - if it's good enough for Goldbach it's good enough for me!!
PS: I do have a degree in Theoretical Physics and Mathematics, not that this qualifies me or anything
IANAPL but from what I understand the intention of the patents directive is to clarify the current position of allowing software patents that provide a "technical contribution", ie have a novel "technial effect" in a non-excluded field.
This sort of thing (VFAT filenames) is probably only just inside the borderline.
US5579517 - has no WO (world) nor EP (europe)equivalent, and so can't be enforced in EP.
... is this really important to flash devices?
& LG=en&DB=EPD&PN=EP0618540&ID=EP+++0618540B1+I+
US5745902 A = EP0578205 A - the EP here is quite different in scope (which is dep on the claims only), this includes restriction to devices with an OS and some detail about B-trees (what are they?) and the different naming of files by applications and the OS. If you're not doing all those things you're OK.
US5758352 A - no WO/EP equivalent
US6286013 B - no WO/EP equivalent
Also in GB (ie UK + Northern Ireland) you can't simply wait until your technology gets adopted by everyone and then spring them for royalties. You have to be consistent - if you've let people get away with it knowingly it's tough.
Seems this is all about handling the longnames allowed in Win95
[PS: It's possible I didn't find the equivalents...
ooops
There's EP0618540 (EP - DE,GB,FR) - see http://l2.espacenet.com/espacenet/bnsviewer?CY=ep
]
Funny, not hilarious, we were burgled (sp?) recently - the insurance company wanted original documents for all the items taken, original receipts ... I had most of them, going back about 5 years, and even knew where they were ... this is probably 'helped' by the fact I don't have much disposable income.
Thing is the insurance folk probably wouldn't accept a scanned image (even if it was third party verified in some way!?).
In UK Patents Act (Section 40(2)(c) if you must know) an employee can 'sue' for extra compensation when they invent something that provides "outstanding benefit" to their employer and the employer hasn't fairly compensated the employee (eg. they just got their wage and the employer made millions off the invention).
It's not about the quantity it's about the frequency.
... but you choose the risk in your own home.
2.4GHz microwave radiation causes water molecules to resonate (I can't remember whether it's the bond angle or length at this frequency - this is how microwave ovens work, I digress). We humans are mainly water. Hence microwaves _at_the_right_frequency_ have an effect on our molecules too.
So microwaves at _this_frequency_ are a concern. But low frequency radio waves are not. It's just like the whole sun-screen (suntan lotion) thing. As long as you block the UV rays you're OK. You don't need to block all light frequencies.
Evidence is limited and what evidence there is suggests negligible effects
A wifi network is pervasive and always on. Would you sit your child in front of a working microwave oven all day?
Also, assuming the folk are naively using equipement that operates at this frequency and assuming that this radiation is damaging. That doesn't mean that when they know about something that is spitting out this frequency then they can't complain. It just means they need to be educated a little about the other dangers. [Remember assumptions, I'm hypothesising here].
Someone already mentioned a Scooter ... over a year ago we ditched our car and my wife and I got a Scooter (a Piaggio Skipper ST125).
Road Tax is about 18 pounds-sterling, it's got a four stroke petrol engine that does c. 80mpg. The back-box and underseat storage provides a good deal of space for shopping. Top speed about 65mph. Parks almost anywhere. You need to do a CBT to ride a 125 (with L plates) but can ride a 50cc with only a full car license.
All in all I reckon it's quite a nice way to get to work. I still enjoy a nice long car journey, occasionally, courteousy of our local hire firm. The scooter can get a little cold/wet in winter but I (usually!!) prefer that to being closeted away in a car.
pbhj
It seems that caffeineboy (along with loads of others) is on to something.
... eg removes the page/subdomain from google for violating good practice and annoying googles users (they have a virtual monopoly, they should be able to get away with it).
... you can come up with your own suggestions for others, they must however be objective.
...
Google does seem to have been taken over with commercial sites and with 'false' linked pages that are only used to improve the page ranking (Googlebombs? - I'm not really up on such things).
What I'd like to see is some more human input into the search process.
Either:
1) You type in your terms and get a list of links back, you follow a link - which creates a google pop-under page (or similar using frames, according to user preference) - and find it is unrelated to what you wanted to find. You click on the pop under and mod the page down. Now the secret is in using the mod points. When a certain level has been reached a trigger is set which causes human intervention. A person looks at the page, sees if the moderation is warranted and acts accordingly
2) Introduce a google meta-tag (like http://www.icra.org) have. The meta-tag has a classification attached. Any violations and your site is dropped! (again, a "this site violates it's google-tag and should be removed -voting system is needed).You don't have to use the meta-tag put it improves page rankings. One of the classification points is eg commercial="yes" (buying or selling anything)
Whoops, that went on a bit
Just a couple of ideas
In the conclusions they appear to be saying that some new interaction is happening due to ('mediated by') exchange of a light gauge boson (translation: low-energy force-carrying integer-spin-particle)
Alternatively a new heavy fermion (neutrinos are fermionic, spin-1/2) mediates in the interaction: their words "could be responsible". So you might not be far off (if there second guess is correct).
Start talking Nobel prizes when CERN/Fermilab find either of these particles.
[... I've not done any particle physics for 5 years so this could be baloney.]
http://www.arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0309/03 09686.pdf ... this must be a draft there's a typo in their ackowledgments (I checked all the equations and they look OK though ;0)>
Well I'm sure there are enough astrophysicist and theoreticians of one bent or another ... gives us the gist ...
I was thinking Hushmail .. but good point!