I'm in engineering, but I think I'm going to keep this one around for everyday calculations and the portability factor - I'll still be using my 89 on exams, but I'm sure it will come in handy...
It's nice to have a calculator that fits in a (normal sized) pocket when you know you won't be doing anything too complicated.
Why would any court accept the claims of this company when they never defended their patent in the past?
Well, generally past enforcement patterns (i.e. non-enforcement and selective enforcement) has nothing to do with the patent rights. AFAIK, if you've paid the patent fees, it's still your patent and you can still sue over infringment. This is unlike trademarks, where all sorts of things can affect the validity of your trademark (for example, if a trademark holder users their mark as a verb rather than a proper noun, it might not stand up in court).
However, there is the legal concept of laches, which MIGHT provide protection against past damages. If it applied to patents, then if a company was aware of a particular infringment, showed negligance by failing to enforce their patent (i.e. sue the infringer), then comes back much later and decides to sue, the infringer couldn't be held responsible for past damages (although they could still be ordered to stop infringing, etc.). This is all in theory though, I'm not sure if this has been tested in court with regard to patents. And IANAL.
If anyone knows more about this, feel free to enlighten me.
Diebold is going to be drummed out of the voting machine business very quickly now...
Perhaps you haven't heard... Diebold is a huge supporter of the Republican party, and I'm sure they have more than enough friends in office right now (including Dubya, to whom Diebold's CEO has promised to deliver the state of Ohio). I'd be surprised if anything actually comes of this in anywhere besides California (if anything even happens there).
The Republicans are SET on making sure that our votes are "counted" by going to electronic voting, and it's something that they want to tightly control. Hell, they walked out - WALKED OUT - of a federal hearing on voting machines.
That is of course, assuming people challenge it in court
Yep. And assuming that someone is so passionate about our RIGHTS that they have the balls to disobey the DMCA so that it can be challenged.
Until someone stops complaining about it and gets it to the Supreme Court, nothing is going to change. So the question is, is anyone ready to take the leap? I'm hoping that the Tribune goes and publishes anyway. Someone needs to take this risk, maybe it will be them.
I'm know I'd buy a subscription if they went through with it - probably not of much consequence to them if they lose the case, of course.
I heard the same interview this morning - wow, a state with complex laws? about voting? that are constantly changing? Well Diebold, sorry you actually had to do some work to sell your machines in one of the largest potential markets in the US. They should have obviously changed their voting laws to make things easier for you, since the customer is supposed to bow down to the vendor and all.
Diebold's CEO and President Walden O'Dell promised to deliver Ohio (which makes me angry to have them here in my state) to Bush in November
I still don't understand why he even said this... Was this some sort of 'wink-wink' signal to supporters that they're tweaking the software in Bush's favor? I doubt they'd go so far as to actually manipulate the results (wait, who am I kidding, if they could they would), but isn't it possible that they might choose less-obvious methods of stacking the deck, such as GUI designs that favor one candidate over another, etc? Or simply overcomplicating the interface to the point that technophiles aren't comfortable with using it and/or prone to screwing up and invalidating their vote? This whole thing just makes me VERY uncomfortable.
There is such an incredibly huge conflict of interest here, it makes me sick. If someone is determined to make something happen (i.e. delivering a state to Bush), he will probably find a way.
Interesting to see a company that is succeeding with lead-free... They are requiring the phase-out of lead-free components by 2006, and now a lot of companies are scrambling to change their product designs and processes to make this possible. I haven't heard of much success in this area.
I think electronic components have a blanket exemption for now, but this exemption is coming up for review soon. Just to be safe, most companies (including mine, which is part of an exempted industry) are trying to come up with lead-free products.
Not sure how much of an effect this will have... I remember reading that on average, electric components are less than 1% lead. In addition, the substitutes being explored to replace lead solder (silver and antimony) may actually cause more groundwater pollution, because they are more soluble. Doesn't seem like it's much more than a feel-good measure.
If some of the students just downloaded music how is that any different than listening to the radio?
No one has said anything about this raid being about file sharing, although just about everyone on/. has assumed this.
One has to believe that someone is pushing this (MPAA, RIAA) with what they belive is evidence against the school system.
The article said that the FBI appeared to be investigating individuals, not the school district. Perhaps they are investigating someone in IT that has the power to erase logs that they might want. If they notified the district ahead of time, the logs could have been erased before they got there.
I really doubt that the FBI would need to get involved in a simple filesharing case.
First of all, none of the articles published so far have said anything about them raiding schools. They entered the Administrative Services building of a school district (to be accurate the article should have said the FBI was raiding "school districts", not "schools"). It's a small point, but when I first read the story I imagined a bunch of FBI agents storming an elementary school while the kids tried to ignore them and go on with their normal school day.
Secondly, this probably isn't just about a few kids swapping files. The article mentions "piracy", not "file sharing", and historically the FBI hasn't been involved in minor file sharing investigations.
While the article seems to be making all sorts of guesses about what is going on, the fact is that the warrant is sealed and no one has said much of anything so far. As others have pointed out, this could be over anything from compromised servers to child porn. Why don't we wait to see what is going on before everyone assumes that this is about file sharing?
Just to give you an idea of how little anyone actually knows, check out a few of the otherstories from other sources...
I also find it interesting, that as Michael pointed out in the story, there hasn't been a single mention of any other raids, yet the article claims that "Federal agents in Phoenix and elsewhere in the country raided schools and other targets in a national crackdown on pirated music CDs and movies." This raid happened yesterday, so there should have been some news coverage of other raids if they took place. Where else in the country?
The only fact that can be traced to anyone is that "The raids came on the same day that Justice Department officials in Washington announced the creation of a new Intellectual Property Task Force to step up copyright enforcement." Everything else seems to be the reporters guessing what happened by guessing that this is connected to the Justice Dept's announcement.
Until I get some more information beyond "The FBI was investigating actions by individuals that have something to do with the Deer County School District" (the only real information in the article), I'm taking this as a bunch of BS by second-rate sensationalist reporters.
On a lighter note, I enjoyed the reference to the district's "COMPUTER COMMAND CENTER" - perhaps they meant the server room?
Does anybody know if individual states can pass tougher laws regarding overtime, in the same way many localities have 'living wage' laws that mandate higher minumum wages than federal law requires?
If enough states pass laws mandating overtime for all employees, the new overtime rules could be meaningless in practice.
That would let people come in and make copies of the non-free stuff.
So does a copy machine, but you see plenty of those in the library.
Putting burners in libraries shouldn't be a problem, unless a state has a particular problem... I know my school library provides cd-burners in a large number of pcs, and have seen several others that do the same. Mine just posts a warning poster on the wall telling you that you shouldn't make illegal copies of copyrighted material, thus covering their butts (just like they post that big scary FBI copyright warning by the copy machines).
Besides, CD-Rs and CD-RWs are common as a storage medium now... many people use library computers, and can store their data on 1 CD rather than lugging around a bunch of floppies.
If you would have read the article the RFID transmitters would be in signs or markers along the roadway and your car would have the reciever.
No, not quite. Quoting from the article:
The DSRC system will be more like a peer-to-peer system in which either end of a link can initiate a transaction; traditional RFID systems operate in a master-slave arrangement. This peer-to-peer architecture will be necessary because many planned applications are vehicle-to-vehicle ones, not involving the roadside RFID readers at all.
I suppose it's possible that the tags won't be uniquely identifiable (maybe they'd just transmit IDs like "CAR" "TRUCK" and "EMERGENCY VEHICLE"), but somehow I doubt it.
So we're just going to feed antibiotics to the general population even though most of them don't need it?
Aren't we already encountering problems with drug resistance because doctors are over-prescribing antibiotics, and patients don't follow the dosing instructions?
Strangly enough, the google cache of google still has the old front page in it (as of 9:35am EST Monday). It's sort of cool to compare the two side by side.
most holes are with microsoft products and there they can drag their feet in releasing a patch because even when the a member of the public has their machine comprimized by a virus (which the patch usually predates) they don't associate microsoft with the problem. A problem with affecting hotmail however is a problem with a microsoft service and thus would be immediatly associated with microsoft and would recieve a much higher priority in being fixed.
I'm not sure about that... Hotmail is essentially one big server side program - they don't have to worry about breaking much other than the html code, and they only have to worry about patching a relatively few number of machines (basically just fix the code on the hotmail servers).
In a OS/Office/etc patch, they're dealing with a MUCH larger number of computers and different configurations.
Many of these security flaws exploit IE and/or Outlook, which are just as associated with MS as hotmail is.I do agree that it's not a good idea to compare the two because this is a relatively painless fix for MS (they only have to fix a few system rather than however many around the world that run the OS).
But that's just my opinion... I'm usually wrong so don't mind me.:-/
Here is our campus newspaper's coverage on the issue from today and January, when the U first learned about the subpoenas.
Students in the dorms also received this e-mail in January regarding the possible subpoena of file-sharer's identities.
In the past, the Vice-President of Student Affairs sent a notice to any students whose information was released under subpoena, explaining that the U was going to do so, and what the reasons were.
I know US customs can give you a hard time with your notebook if they feel like it... Technically, you should carry around some kind of proof of purchase (with purchase date). If you don't have a receipt (i.e. it's a company laptop, etc) there's a Customs form (#4457) you can fill out prior to your trip to show you had it before you left the country.
Like parent said, there are so many other laptops floating around the airport, chances are they won't give you a hard time. But asshole customs agents always seem to pop up at the worst times, and I'd imagine the consequences of being caught "smuggling" a laptop out of the country wouldn't be too fun.
Slashdot Mirror
It's nice to have a calculator that fits in a (normal sized) pocket when you know you won't be doing anything too complicated.
Well, generally past enforcement patterns (i.e. non-enforcement and selective enforcement) has nothing to do with the patent rights. AFAIK, if you've paid the patent fees, it's still your patent and you can still sue over infringment. This is unlike trademarks, where all sorts of things can affect the validity of your trademark (for example, if a trademark holder users their mark as a verb rather than a proper noun, it might not stand up in court).
However, there is the legal concept of laches, which MIGHT provide protection against past damages. If it applied to patents, then if a company was aware of a particular infringment, showed negligance by failing to enforce their patent (i.e. sue the infringer), then comes back much later and decides to sue, the infringer couldn't be held responsible for past damages (although they could still be ordered to stop infringing, etc.). This is all in theory though, I'm not sure if this has been tested in court with regard to patents. And IANAL.
If anyone knows more about this, feel free to enlighten me.
Perhaps you haven't heard... Diebold is a huge supporter of the Republican party, and I'm sure they have more than enough friends in office right now (including Dubya, to whom Diebold's CEO has promised to deliver the state of Ohio). I'd be surprised if anything actually comes of this in anywhere besides California (if anything even happens there).
The Republicans are SET on making sure that our votes are "counted" by going to electronic voting, and it's something that they want to tightly control. Hell, they walked out - WALKED OUT - of a federal hearing on voting machines.
Yep. And assuming that someone is so passionate about our RIGHTS that they have the balls to disobey the DMCA so that it can be challenged.
Until someone stops complaining about it and gets it to the Supreme Court, nothing is going to change. So the question is, is anyone ready to take the leap? I'm hoping that the Tribune goes and publishes anyway. Someone needs to take this risk, maybe it will be them.
I'm know I'd buy a subscription if they went through with it - probably not of much consequence to them if they lose the case, of course.
Here's to the digital millenium.
Diebold's CEO and President Walden O'Dell promised to deliver Ohio (which makes me angry to have them here in my state) to Bush in November
I still don't understand why he even said this... Was this some sort of 'wink-wink' signal to supporters that they're tweaking the software in Bush's favor? I doubt they'd go so far as to actually manipulate the results (wait, who am I kidding, if they could they would), but isn't it possible that they might choose less-obvious methods of stacking the deck, such as GUI designs that favor one candidate over another, etc? Or simply overcomplicating the interface to the point that technophiles aren't comfortable with using it and/or prone to screwing up and invalidating their vote? This whole thing just makes me VERY uncomfortable.
There is such an incredibly huge conflict of interest here, it makes me sick. If someone is determined to make something happen (i.e. delivering a state to Bush), he will probably find a way.
Interesting to see a company that is succeeding with lead-free... They are requiring the phase-out of lead-free components by 2006, and now a lot of companies are scrambling to change their product designs and processes to make this possible. I haven't heard of much success in this area.
I think electronic components have a blanket exemption for now, but this exemption is coming up for review soon. Just to be safe, most companies (including mine, which is part of an exempted industry) are trying to come up with lead-free products.
Not sure how much of an effect this will have... I remember reading that on average, electric components are less than 1% lead. In addition, the substitutes being explored to replace lead solder (silver and antimony) may actually cause more groundwater pollution, because they are more soluble. Doesn't seem like it's much more than a feel-good measure.
No one has said anything about this raid being about file sharing, although just about everyone on
One has to believe that someone is pushing this (MPAA, RIAA) with what they belive is evidence against the school system.
The article said that the FBI appeared to be investigating individuals, not the school district. Perhaps they are investigating someone in IT that has the power to erase logs that they might want. If they notified the district ahead of time, the logs could have been erased before they got there.
I really doubt that the FBI would need to get involved in a simple filesharing case.
Secondly, this probably isn't just about a few kids swapping files. The article mentions "piracy", not "file sharing", and historically the FBI hasn't been involved in minor file sharing investigations.
While the article seems to be making all sorts of guesses about what is going on, the fact is that the warrant is sealed and no one has said much of anything so far. As others have pointed out, this could be over anything from compromised servers to child porn. Why don't we wait to see what is going on before everyone assumes that this is about file sharing?
Just to give you an idea of how little anyone actually knows, check out a few of the other stories from other sources...
I also find it interesting, that as Michael pointed out in the story, there hasn't been a single mention of any other raids, yet the article claims that "Federal agents in Phoenix and elsewhere in the country raided schools and other targets in a national crackdown on pirated music CDs and movies." This raid happened yesterday, so there should have been some news coverage of other raids if they took place. Where else in the country?
The only fact that can be traced to anyone is that "The raids came on the same day that Justice Department officials in Washington announced the creation of a new Intellectual Property Task Force to step up copyright enforcement." Everything else seems to be the reporters guessing what happened by guessing that this is connected to the Justice Dept's announcement.
Until I get some more information beyond "The FBI was investigating actions by individuals that have something to do with the Deer County School District" (the only real information in the article), I'm taking this as a bunch of BS by second-rate sensationalist reporters.
On a lighter note, I enjoyed the reference to the district's "COMPUTER COMMAND CENTER" - perhaps they meant the server room?
If enough states pass laws mandating overtime for all employees, the new overtime rules could be meaningless in practice.
So does a copy machine, but you see plenty of those in the library.
Putting burners in libraries shouldn't be a problem, unless a state has a particular problem... I know my school library provides cd-burners in a large number of pcs, and have seen several others that do the same. Mine just posts a warning poster on the wall telling you that you shouldn't make illegal copies of copyrighted material, thus covering their butts (just like they post that big scary FBI copyright warning by the copy machines).
Besides, CD-Rs and CD-RWs are common as a storage medium now... many people use library computers, and can store their data on 1 CD rather than lugging around a bunch of floppies.
It's been on for a while (with the same six episodes), but I can't remember when they first started airing it.
Not to mention that we don't have to bother bringing them back at the end of the mission.
No, not quite. Quoting from the article:
The DSRC system will be more like a peer-to-peer system in which either end of a link can initiate a transaction; traditional RFID systems operate in a master-slave arrangement. This peer-to-peer architecture will be necessary because many planned applications are vehicle-to-vehicle ones, not involving the roadside RFID readers at all.
I suppose it's possible that the tags won't be uniquely identifiable (maybe they'd just transmit IDs like "CAR" "TRUCK" and "EMERGENCY VEHICLE"), but somehow I doubt it.
Now I just have to figure out a way to get my car into the microwave...
...Southeast, 85 mph, assuming no losses due to friction, etc.
how do they manage the wirering to all those servers today?
Probably looks something like this.
So we're just going to feed antibiotics to the general population even though most of them don't need it?
Aren't we already encountering problems with drug resistance because doctors are over-prescribing antibiotics, and patients don't follow the dosing instructions?
Or are these not antibiotics? I'm confused.
You mean Fwoogle? huhuhuhhuhuh
Strangly enough, the google cache of google still has the old front page in it (as of 9:35am EST Monday). It's sort of cool to compare the two side by side.
Yeah, it's too bad. I hear it's because they couldn't get the "Message Center" to work correctly.
I'm not sure about that... Hotmail is essentially one big server side program - they don't have to worry about breaking much other than the html code, and they only have to worry about patching a relatively few number of machines (basically just fix the code on the hotmail servers).
In a OS/Office/etc patch, they're dealing with a MUCH larger number of computers and different configurations.
Many of these security flaws exploit IE and/or Outlook, which are just as associated with MS as hotmail is.I do agree that it's not a good idea to compare the two because this is a relatively painless fix for MS (they only have to fix a few system rather than however many around the world that run the OS).
But that's just my opinion... I'm usually wrong so don't mind me. :-/
But how many Libraries of Congress is that?
Oops, didn't mean to link to the same articles as the original submitter... but the e-mail and other info is still valid. Sorry.
Students in the dorms also received this e-mail in January regarding the possible subpoena of file-sharer's identities.
In the past, the Vice-President of Student Affairs sent a notice to any students whose information was released under subpoena, explaining that the U was going to do so, and what the reasons were.
Like parent said, there are so many other laptops floating around the airport, chances are they won't give you a hard time. But asshole customs agents always seem to pop up at the worst times, and I'd imagine the consequences of being caught "smuggling" a laptop out of the country wouldn't be too fun.