Microsoft is blaming a mystery bug for preventing access to the encrypted version of Hotmail, denying that it deliberately blocked access to the service in Syria.
On Friday afternoon, the company told The Reg that Hotmail users who had already enabled the HTTPS version of the popular email service were still able to use it. Only Hotmailers trying to turn on HTTPS for the first time in certain countries and languages were being blocked, Microsoft said.
People trying to connect were greeted with the message: "Your Windows Live ID can't use HTTPS automatically because this feature is not available for your account type."
Microsoft said it still doesn't know what caused the bug, but it has been resolved and the company is investigating the cause. "We do not intentionally limit support by region or geography and this issue was not restricted to any specific region of the world. We apologize for any inconvenience to our customers that this may have caused," a Microsoft spokesperson said.
The company said users in the Bahamas, Cayman Islands, and Fiji were also affected.
We currently subsidize rural/suburbia, and that will have to stop (so we can make improvements in the city).
I don't know you get a population that is essentially suburban to embrace the densely packed inner city - and you need density to see any significant economies.
The middle class began moving to the suburbs before the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. That is, after all, why you build the bridge to Brooklyn.
American cities are low density. There has never been any very compelling geographical reason to compress them. Manhattan is the exception not the rule.
Mass transit was in dire financial straits before World War I.
The lowly Ford provided portal-to-portal service for a family of five plus dog and cat and cargo at an operating cost of one cent a mile.
The PS3 cluster took 1,500 =2,000 loss-leader consoles + spares out of retail distribution channels.
With no return to Sony from video game and Blu-Ray or on-line services. While cannibalizing sales of Sonu's own commercial HPC.product.
What the geek is asking for is a hardware subsidy from Sony's consumer products division - to be paid, ultimately, by PS3 gamers.
It is not going to happen.
The OtherOS made its exit from the PS2 with the introduction of the PS2 Slim. No one built a HPC cluster from the PS3 believed the game was going to go the whole nine innings.
An informant/snitch generally is someone who is a criminal hacker or member of a crew, who betrays his or her own crew to provide information to another crew (usually the police). Albert Gonzalez fits the definition of a snitch, the worst kind.>/quote?>
There is no honor among thieves.
The hacker trades in secrets - and there is no bigger secret than the identity of other hackers.
Their last 3 "New" versions have mostly been about Microsoft's bottom line, and been less about true innovation. (EG--look how hard they are trying to kill windows XP.)
Amusing.
The geek body-slams XP for ten years.
But is first and loudest to be heard wailing at its EOL gravesite mourning.
What you would see instead, is a service-industry created, instead of a product-industry.... Oh wait, we already are!
Last I heard from the geek, service was the way to find profit in FOSS.
The head of the Japanese power company at the center of one of the world's worst nuclear disasters has all but vanished from the public eye.
And many Japanese, on a knife edge waiting to see if the nuclear power plant and radiation leaks can be brought under control, are beginning to ask where he is and questioning how much he is in control of the crisis.
Masataka Shimizu, chief executive of Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), has not made a public appearance in a week.
And he has yet to visit the crippled nuclear power plant north of Tokyo that was badly damaged in the massive earthquake and tsunami that struck on March 11, and where 300 workers are desperately trying to find ways to cool down the reactors.
At his last news conference, a week ago, the 66-year-old apologized for the situation. Since then, he has all but vanished from public view, issuing one statement on Saturday expressing regret for "causing such trouble."
Shimizu is a consummate company man, joining the company where his father worked, at the age of 23. Japanese media have quoted him as saying he wanted to work at a company "which serves public interests."
At the country's biggest power supplier, he made a name for himself as a cost-cutter in the procurement side of the business, becoming company president in June 2008.
Japanese company chiefs may not be as closely associated with the successes of their companies as they are in the West, but they are to any failures.
They are expected to take responsibility for shortcomings, scandals or disasters that happen on their watch, apologizing profusely and often resigning.
Indeed, a former president and chairman of the company both stepped down in 2002 after it was disclosed the company had deliberately falsified data and safety reports.
TEPCO's numerous brushes with scandal, including what the company acknowledged was "nonconformance" in repairs to a nuclear power plant following an earthquake in 2007, has made the press and the public suspicious of company statements during the current catastrophe.
The 2007 quake showed that another nuclear plant's infrastructure was insufficient to withstand quakes and, as Shimizu said last September, "left us with a mountain of challenges."
"We devoted our efforts to overcoming the crisis and creating a tougher business foundation by taking measures so that our nuclear power plants can withstand disasters," he said.
Whenever Shimizu does decide to reappear, he is likely to find he will need more convincing words.
(Additional reporting by Yuka Obayahi and Taiga Uranaka; Editing by Jonathan Thatcher)
I might have to call this one bullshit. I briefly checked Asahi, Mainichi and Yomiuri, the three major newspapers in Japan. Only Mainichi has this news.
Few details, but here is a samplng of stories about eployment of the Global Hawk UAV and its capabilities:
Having just attended training in emergency preparedness, we trained not to release details, so the Japanese are just following the standard script. They also said never lie, or you will never be believed in the future. They seem to be following the script.
Silence is not a substitute for candor.
Silence can fuel rumors far more dangerous than the truth. Silence does not inspire trust.
The script is not the performance:
[Tepco] has already been severely criticised by Japan's prime minister, Naoto Kan, for failing to inform him immediately that a serious explosion had taken place following the earthquakes. "What the hell is going on?" asked Kan last week when he finally caught up with Tepco officials, in remarks picked up by a stray microphone. "Retreat is unthinkable," he told the firm, fearing that the decision to evacuate 740 staff from the stricken reactor site was the start of a complete abandonment.
Upon its 1742 publication, Bach entitled it "Keyboard Practice, consisting of an Aria with Diverse Variations, for the Harpsichord with 2 Manuals. Composed for Music Lovers, to Refresh their Spirits."
As Glenn Gould remarked, the title offers a very down-to-earth description of a monumental work. Long regarded as the Baroque era's most important set of variations, the Goldbergs were relatively unknown when he chose them for his recording debut in [1955.] The sensation created by his still-popular recordings revivified the piece in concert performances, in which spectators delight in its virtuosic hand-crossings.
Reprint of the Gesellschaft, Leipzig, 1853 edition.
The punishment does not fit the crime. Period. This should be a *civil* matter. Garnish his wages, make him pay for restitution and loss of revenues, but this should not be a criminal offense.
It always comes as a surprise to some folks when a white collar criminal - particularly one of their own class or profession - is caged.
Which is really the whole point of the business:
It teaches the lesson that no one is above the law. That no one is judgement proof.
One that doesn't have a catastrophic failure mode?
I am not convinced that there is such a beast.
If production is remotely sited, you have to protect the distribution network. The solar mirrors or panels are in the desert southwest - but the power is being fed to the coastal cities of California.
How much attention is being paid to secondary modes of failure?
It surprised the hell out of me that spent fuel rods would be stored in pools on top of a reactor. That enormously complcates the problem if there is any structural damage to the building.
Damage to water lines. Pumps and generators. Fuel tanks.
For example, simply peeing in public, in some states, is enough to have you arrested and classified as a sexual predator.
The mod-up to +4, "Insightful" demands, I think, some minimal show of proof that what you say is true.
Below is the public registry for New York state, searchable by name, county or zip code. It is restricted to Level 2 and 3 offenders.
Level 2 registrants remain on the list for 20 years, Level 3 for life.
The rap sheet typically includes the age of the victim, the charges on which the registrant was convicted, aggravating circumstances, and conditions of release.
But if Netflix bought up the rights to produce some new episodes of old cult classics such as Firefly, Stargate...hell, maybe a new good Star Trek series, then I would seriously consider subscribing to an account.
The reboot is from scratch and it costs a lot of money up front.
The original sets and props have been sold or destroyed. The cast and production crew are retired or dead or have long since moved on to other projects.
Production values of the original may be five to twenty-five years out-of-date or more.
That is good enough for the audience of a Star Trek fan flick - but not good enough for the paying customers on an HBO subscription plan.
"MPAA Sues Netflix, Claims to Own Patent on "Monetization of Serialized Entertainment Video via Broadcast Medium""
Who do you suppose is going to produce content for Netflix?
In 1954-1957, when ABC Television was an infant competitor to NBC and CBS, the gates were opened to Disney and Warner Brothers.
Maverick and Zorrro.
In the fifties and sixties, Desilu produced iconic TV shows like I Love Lucy, Star Trek, The Andy Griffith Show, Mission: Impossible, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Untouchables and I Spy.
But the financial burden on a small independent studio is crushing. That is why you outsource production to the big boys. That is why you forge global partnerships in production and distribution.
There is always a nerd who thinks he has a high tech hit machine. Give him the megabucks or put him on a starvation budget and he'll tell you he can deliver a "Rango."
But what you will probably get will look more like "Mars Needs Moms" than "True Grit."
"Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."
Men change.
Jefferson's position on the granting of patents changed through the years. In his article "Godfather of American Invention," Silvio Bedini notes that in 1787 Jefferson's opposition to monopoly in any form led him to oppose patents. But by 1789, Jefferson's firm opposition had weakened. Writing to James Madison, Jefferson said he approved the Bill of Rights as far as it went, but would like to see the addition of an article specifying that "Monopolies may be allowed to person for their own productions in literature, and their own inventions in the arts, for a term not exceeding --- years, but for no longer term and for no other purpose."
In 1789, while Jefferson was still in Paris...the first patent act was enacted into law April 10, 1790. Under the new law, the Secretaries of War and State and the Attorney General constituted a three-man review board, with the Secretary of State (Jefferson), playing the leading role. Two months after the law was passed, Jefferson remarked it had "given a spring to invention beyond his conception."
Jefferson continued to perform his patent office duties until the patent act of February 21, 1793...
[T]he new law made the granting of patents almost entirely an automatic matter; the three-man review board was replaced by an administrative structure. In 1802, Secretary of State James Madison created a separate patent office for handling all claims.
In 1836, the patent law was completely rewritten, effecting a compromise of sorts between the strictness of Jefferson's tenure and the free-wheeling acceptance of all patent claims during the intervening years. The 1836 law is still in effect today.
Guiding Jefferson while patents came to him for review was the belief that patents should be given to particular machines, not to all possible applications or uses of them; that mere change in material or form gave no claim; and that exclusive rights of an invention must always be considered in terms of its social benefit.
Quoting Jefferson on invention and intellectual property rights is not without irony.
Jefferson was notoriously spendthrift. Living his life one jump ahead of the sheriff, as a proper Southern gentleman should.
Jefferson's architecture and invention were - with the exception of an early moldboard plow - almost exclusively - meant for use by men of his own race and class.
This was not man who was going to invent bifocals, a lightening rod or a Franklin stove. This was not a man who was going to ignite an industrial revolution.
Jefferson's workforce was slave labor.
He was obliged neither to publicly acknowledge a slave's contributions or to pay for them - and any promises of emancipation he may have made would prove empty. He was bankrupt.
He was obliged to educate his workforce - and that in Virginia would become dangerous even before his body was cold.
A large portion of children are kidnapped by family members who will not otherwise harm the child.
You can't be certain of that.
But it is particularly dangerous to compare the U.S. - where extortion abductions are almost unknown - to a country where kidnapping for profit has become big business.
Colombia was once Latin America's kidnapping capital, where Marxist guerrillas took hostages and held them for months, even years, in recondite jungle camps, using them as political bargaining chips or human shields. But in recent years, as drug cartels in Mexico have branched out into other forms of crime, kidnapping there has become a lucrative cash industry.
Letting 12 retards decide what to do with a person after listening to hours or days of screaming from lawyers should be the last resort, not the first choice
Have you ever stepped foot inside a courtroom? The jurors aren't retards and the judge won't tolerate any theatrics from counsel.
Let's face it - Gates was lucky. IBM let him sell his copy of DOS
Gates was selling microcomputer BASIC to the Fortune 500 as far back as July 1976.
FORTRAN and COBOL in 1977. In 1979 8080 BASIC takes an ICP Million Dollar Award - and PC software sales are now officially big business.
In the late seventies, CP/M was the standard OS for business applications. Microsoft's first hardware product was the Z-80 Softcard for the Apple II and the Apple III.
Gates promised to deliver a serviceable 16 bit CP/M clone for the 8086 in time for the scheduled launch of the new IBM - along with a full suite of programming languages for the new micro.
In exchange for a non-exclusive license, PC-DOS could be sold for a pinch-penny $50 retail list. These were the words IBM wanted to hear, and they weren't coming from Digital Research.
Why isn't there a wikipedia fork yet? We could leave the deletionists at the old rotten one, and welcome people who actually contribute to the new one.
The fork doesn't solve the problem.
An encyclopedia has to maintain some minimal level of substance and credibility if it not to become a vanity press.
Articles need to be well-written. Reasonably up-to-date and credibly sourced.
Slashdot Mirror
In the open source community (and most of the larger computer nerd metacommunity) the term free software has a very specific meaning.
It is rather a pity though that nerd speech is wholly untelligible to anyone else.
Microsoft is blaming a mystery bug for preventing access to the encrypted version of Hotmail, denying that it deliberately blocked access to the service in Syria.
On Friday afternoon, the company told The Reg that Hotmail users who had already enabled the HTTPS version of the popular email service were still able to use it. Only Hotmailers trying to turn on HTTPS for the first time in certain countries and languages were being blocked, Microsoft said.
People trying to connect were greeted with the message: "Your Windows Live ID can't use HTTPS automatically because this feature is not available for your account type."
Microsoft said it still doesn't know what caused the bug, but it has been resolved and the company is investigating the cause. "We do not intentionally limit support by region or geography and this issue was not restricted to any specific region of the world. We apologize for any inconvenience to our customers that this may have caused," a Microsoft spokesperson said.
The company said users in the Bahamas, Cayman Islands, and Fiji were also affected.
Microsoft: Mystery bug blocks Syrian secure Hotmail
Sun worshipers and fat cats hit too [March 26]
We currently subsidize rural/suburbia, and that will have to stop (so we can make improvements in the city).
I don't know you get a population that is essentially suburban to embrace the densely packed inner city - and you need density to see any significant economies.
The middle class began moving to the suburbs before the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. That is, after all, why you build the bridge to Brooklyn.
American cities are low density. There has never been any very compelling geographical reason to compress them. Manhattan is the exception not the rule.
Mass transit was in dire financial straits before World War I.
The lowly Ford provided portal-to-portal service for a family of five plus dog and cat and cargo at an operating cost of one cent a mile.
With no return to Sony from video game and Blu-Ray or on-line services. While cannibalizing sales of Sonu's own commercial HPC.product.
What the geek is asking for is a hardware subsidy from Sony's consumer products division - to be paid, ultimately, by PS3 gamers.
It is not going to happen.
The OtherOS made its exit from the PS2 with the introduction of the PS2 Slim. No one built a HPC cluster from the PS3 believed the game was going to go the whole nine innings.
An informant/snitch generally is someone who is a criminal hacker or member of a crew, who betrays his or her own crew to provide information to another crew (usually the police). Albert Gonzalez fits the definition of a snitch, the worst kind.>/quote?> There is no honor among thieves.
The hacker trades in secrets - and there is no bigger secret than the identity of other hackers.
However, the deal is still a year away and subject to regulatory lobbying and bribery.
Simply an observation:
Whenever something goes wrong for the geek in the law or in politics, his first thought and talk is about "Bribery!"
Their last 3 "New" versions have mostly been about Microsoft's bottom line, and been less about true innovation. (EG--look how hard they are trying to kill windows XP.)
Amusing.
The geek body-slams XP for ten years.
But is first and loudest to be heard wailing at its EOL gravesite mourning.
What you would see instead, is a service-industry created, instead of a product-industry.... Oh wait, we already are!
Last I heard from the geek, service was the way to find profit in FOSS.
The head of the Japanese power company at the center of one of the world's worst nuclear disasters has all but vanished from the public eye.
And many Japanese, on a knife edge waiting to see if the nuclear power plant and radiation leaks can be brought under control, are beginning to ask where he is and questioning how much he is in control of the crisis.
Masataka Shimizu, chief executive of Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), has not made a public appearance in a week.
And he has yet to visit the crippled nuclear power plant north of Tokyo that was badly damaged in the massive earthquake and tsunami that struck on March 11, and where 300 workers are desperately trying to find ways to cool down the reactors.
At his last news conference, a week ago, the 66-year-old apologized for the situation. Since then, he has all but vanished from public view, issuing one statement on Saturday expressing regret for "causing such trouble."
Shimizu is a consummate company man, joining the company where his father worked, at the age of 23. Japanese media have quoted him as saying he wanted to work at a company "which serves public interests."
At the country's biggest power supplier, he made a name for himself as a cost-cutter in the procurement side of the business, becoming company president in June 2008.
Japanese company chiefs may not be as closely associated with the successes of their companies as they are in the West, but they are to any failures.
They are expected to take responsibility for shortcomings, scandals or disasters that happen on their watch, apologizing profusely and often resigning.
Indeed, a former president and chairman of the company both stepped down in 2002 after it was disclosed the company had deliberately falsified data and safety reports.
TEPCO's numerous brushes with scandal, including what the company acknowledged was "nonconformance" in repairs to a nuclear power plant following an earthquake in 2007, has made the press and the public suspicious of company statements during the current catastrophe.
The 2007 quake showed that another nuclear plant's infrastructure was insufficient to withstand quakes and, as Shimizu said last September, "left us with a mountain of challenges."
"We devoted our efforts to overcoming the crisis and creating a tougher business foundation by taking measures so that our nuclear power plants can withstand disasters," he said.
Whenever Shimizu does decide to reappear, he is likely to find he will need more convincing words.
(Additional reporting by Yuka Obayahi and Taiga Uranaka; Editing by Jonathan Thatcher)
Where is Japan's nuclear power CEO? [March 20]
I might have to call this one bullshit. I briefly checked Asahi, Mainichi and Yomiuri, the three major newspapers in Japan. Only Mainichi has this news.
Few details, but here is a samplng of stories about eployment of the Global Hawk UAV and its capabilities:
Global Hawk offers images of quake's destruction [March 18]
Guam Global Hawks Surveying Earthquake Damage [March 18]
Japan Earthquake: Global Hawk UAV May Be Able to Peek Inside Damaged Reactors [March 17]
Having just attended training in emergency preparedness, we trained not to release details, so the Japanese are just following the standard script. They also said never lie, or you will never be believed in the future. They seem to be following the script.
Silence is not a substitute for candor.
Silence can fuel rumors far more dangerous than the truth. Silence does not inspire trust.
The script is not the performance:
[Tepco] has already been severely criticised by Japan's prime minister, Naoto Kan, for failing to inform him immediately that a serious explosion had taken place following the earthquakes. "What the hell is going on?" asked Kan last week when he finally caught up with Tepco officials, in remarks picked up by a stray microphone. "Retreat is unthinkable," he told the firm, fearing that the decision to evacuate 740 staff from the stricken reactor site was the start of a complete abandonment.
Embattled Tepco faces its BP moment over Japan nuclear disaster
Now I can't give any more details of the training. Sorry.
Why not?
Radiation Protection - Protective Action Guides
Are you saying it's not innovating? Classical sheet music is very, very expensive.
Goldberg Variations: BWV 988 $7.95
Upon its 1742 publication, Bach entitled it "Keyboard Practice, consisting of an Aria with Diverse Variations, for the Harpsichord with 2 Manuals. Composed for Music Lovers, to Refresh their Spirits." As Glenn Gould remarked, the title offers a very down-to-earth description of a monumental work. Long regarded as the Baroque era's most important set of variations, the Goldbergs were relatively unknown when he chose them for his recording debut in [1955.] The sensation created by his still-popular recordings revivified the piece in concert performances, in which spectators delight in its virtuosic hand-crossings.
Reprint of the Gesellschaft, Leipzig, 1853 edition.
Bach: Goldberg Variations [Gould, 1955], Bach: The Goldberg Variations [Gould. 1981] MP3 samples for both.
Two very different approaches to the same work.
In presenting the "Variations" to a modern audience, do you use an arrangement from 1742 or the 1853 Leipzig edition?
Glenn Gould from 1955? Glenn Gould from 1981? Or should you be rolling your own?
The choices are never so simple as mechanically playing a "piano roll" score in the public domain.
There you go. Sure, there are people who will suggest a bunch of other crap, but that's the basics.
I would add a well-equipted first aid kit and any prescription/non prescription medications and other medical supplies that are likely to be needed.
Don't neglet smoke alarms and carbon-monoxide detectors. In each winter blast we lose a few here to CO poisoning.
Keep a working phone connected to that old land line.
The punishment does not fit the crime. Period.
This should be a *civil* matter. Garnish his wages, make him pay for restitution and loss of revenues, but this should not be a criminal offense.
It always comes as a surprise to some folks when a white collar criminal - particularly one of their own class or profession - is caged.
Which is really the whole point of the business:
It teaches the lesson that no one is above the law. That no one is judgement proof.
One that doesn't have a catastrophic failure mode?
I am not convinced that there is such a beast.
If production is remotely sited, you have to protect the distribution network. The solar mirrors or panels are in the desert southwest - but the power is being fed to the coastal cities of California.
How much attention is being paid to secondary modes of failure?
It surprised the hell out of me that spent fuel rods would be stored in pools on top of a reactor. That enormously complcates the problem if there is any structural damage to the building.
Damage to water lines. Pumps and generators. Fuel tanks.
For example, simply peeing in public, in some states, is enough to have you arrested and classified as a sexual predator.
The mod-up to +4, "Insightful" demands, I think, some minimal show of proof that what you say is true.
Below is the public registry for New York state, searchable by name, county or zip code. It is restricted to Level 2 and 3 offenders.
Level 2 registrants remain on the list for 20 years, Level 3 for life.
The rap sheet typically includes the age of the victim, the charges on which the registrant was convicted, aggravating circumstances, and conditions of release.
For example:
Victim, female. 12 yrs old
Force used:
Choked
Threat
Hit with hand/fist/club
Search Public Registry of Sex Offenders
Then it is a retarded list, Moon is the best hard sci fi movie in the last decade, arguably one of the only hard sci fi movies in the last decade
The problem is that "Moon" had a $5 million dollar budget and a $5 million dollar gross. Moon It was neither profitable or popular.
vote with your wallet.
By the numbers:
49 million consoles sold. 69 million PSN accounts. 17 million PlayStation Home social networking accounts. 4 million MOVE controllers.
The PS3 Fat has been out of production for almost three years.
Each new video game sold , Blu-Ray video, MOVE contoller or online service like Netflix is a vote for the firmware upgrade.
Of course the geek can still vote with his wallet.
But so can everyone browsing the latest in HDTV, home video and console gaming at Walmart.
But if Netflix bought up the rights to produce some new episodes of old cult classics such as Firefly, Stargate...hell, maybe a new good Star Trek series, then I would seriously consider subscribing to an account.
The reboot is from scratch and it costs a lot of money up front.
The original sets and props have been sold or destroyed. The cast and production crew are retired or dead or have long since moved on to other projects.
Production values of the original may be five to twenty-five years out-of-date or more.
That is good enough for the audience of a Star Trek fan flick - but not good enough for the paying customers on an HBO subscription plan.
Nope, you can pay someone to work on it in that case.
If you have the money.
Services for the blind and disabled are not exactly swimming in cash right now.
"MPAA Sues Netflix, Claims to Own Patent on "Monetization of Serialized Entertainment Video via Broadcast Medium""
Who do you suppose is going to produce content for Netflix?
In 1954-1957, when ABC Television was an infant competitor to NBC and CBS, the gates were opened to Disney and Warner Brothers.
Maverick and Zorrro.
In the fifties and sixties, Desilu produced iconic TV shows like I Love Lucy, Star Trek, The Andy Griffith Show, Mission: Impossible, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Untouchables and I Spy.
But the financial burden on a small independent studio is crushing. That is why you outsource production to the big boys. That is why you forge global partnerships in production and distribution.
There is always a nerd who thinks he has a high tech hit machine. Give him the megabucks or put him on a starvation budget and he'll tell you he can deliver a "Rango."
But what you will probably get will look more like "Mars Needs Moms" than "True Grit."
"Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."
Men change.
Jefferson's position on the granting of patents changed through the years. In his article "Godfather of American Invention," Silvio Bedini notes that in 1787 Jefferson's opposition to monopoly in any form led him to oppose patents. But by 1789, Jefferson's firm opposition had weakened. Writing to James Madison, Jefferson said he approved the Bill of Rights as far as it went, but would like to see the addition of an article specifying that "Monopolies may be allowed to person for their own productions in literature, and their own inventions in the arts, for a term not exceeding --- years, but for no longer term and for no other purpose."
In 1789, while Jefferson was still in Paris...the first patent act was enacted into law April 10, 1790. Under the new law, the Secretaries of War and State and the Attorney General constituted a three-man review board, with the Secretary of State (Jefferson), playing the leading role. Two months after the law was passed, Jefferson remarked it had "given a spring to invention beyond his conception."
Jefferson continued to perform his patent office duties until the patent act of February 21, 1793...
[T]he new law made the granting of patents almost entirely an automatic matter; the three-man review board was replaced by an administrative structure. In 1802, Secretary of State James Madison created a separate patent office for handling all claims.
In 1836, the patent law was completely rewritten, effecting a compromise of sorts between the strictness of Jefferson's tenure and the free-wheeling acceptance of all patent claims during the intervening years. The 1836 law is still in effect today.
Guiding Jefferson while patents came to him for review was the belief that patents should be given to particular machines, not to all possible applications or uses of them; that mere change in material or form gave no claim; and that exclusive rights of an invention must always be considered in terms of its social benefit.
Quoting Jefferson on invention and intellectual property rights is not without irony.
Jefferson was notoriously spendthrift. Living his life one jump ahead of the sheriff, as a proper Southern gentleman should.
Jefferson's architecture and invention were - with the exception of an early moldboard plow - almost exclusively - meant for use by men of his own race and class.
This was not man who was going to invent bifocals, a lightening rod or a Franklin stove. This was not a man who was going to ignite an industrial revolution.
Jefferson's workforce was slave labor.
He was obliged neither to publicly acknowledge a slave's contributions or to pay for them - and any promises of emancipation he may have made would prove empty. He was bankrupt.
He was obliged to educate his workforce - and that in Virginia would become dangerous even before his body was cold.
A large portion of children are kidnapped by family members who will not otherwise harm the child.
You can't be certain of that.
But it is particularly dangerous to compare the U.S. - where extortion abductions are almost unknown - to a country where kidnapping for profit has become big business.
Colombia was once Latin America's kidnapping capital, where Marxist guerrillas took hostages and held them for months, even years, in recondite jungle camps, using them as political bargaining chips or human shields. But in recent years, as drug cartels in Mexico have branched out into other forms of crime, kidnapping there has become a lucrative cash industry.
As kidnappings for ransom surge in Mexico, victims' families and employers turn to private U.S. firms instead of law enforcement
Letting 12 retards decide what to do with a person after listening to hours or days of screaming from lawyers should be the last resort, not the first choice
Have you ever stepped foot inside a courtroom? The jurors aren't retards and the judge won't tolerate any theatrics from counsel.
Let's face it - Gates was lucky. IBM let him sell his copy of DOS
Gates was selling microcomputer BASIC to the Fortune 500 as far back as July 1976.
FORTRAN and COBOL in 1977. In 1979 8080 BASIC takes an ICP Million Dollar Award - and PC software sales are now officially big business.
In the late seventies, CP/M was the standard OS for business applications. Microsoft's first hardware product was the Z-80 Softcard for the Apple II and the Apple III.
Gates promised to deliver a serviceable 16 bit CP/M clone for the 8086 in time for the scheduled launch of the new IBM - along with a full suite of programming languages for the new micro.
In exchange for a non-exclusive license, PC-DOS could be sold for a pinch-penny $50 retail list. These were the words IBM wanted to hear, and they weren't coming from Digital Research.
Why isn't there a wikipedia fork yet? We could leave the deletionists at the old rotten one, and welcome people who actually contribute to the new one.
The fork doesn't solve the problem.
An encyclopedia has to maintain some minimal level of substance and credibility if it not to become a vanity press.
Articles need to be well-written. Reasonably up-to-date and credibly sourced.