Now "multitouch" is a bad example, because it is very descriptive. But just to be a devil's advocate...
Just because a phrase gets used does not mean it can't be trademarked. For instance, "Bud" is a trademark of InBev (shortened form of Budweiser). This, despite the word "bud" used for hundreds of years.
Unlike the word "multitouch", "bud" has no descriptive purpose to the beer.
Apple would have been able to trademark Simul-Touch or some other non-word.
If I have two inventions, and they do the exact same thing, but one uses an analog circuit and the other a microprocessor with software logic - why can I patent the analog circuit version but not the software version that does the same thing?
Innovation doesn't count in trademarks either - it is the mark that you use for your trade, that is all. You can be a car mechanic, innovate nothing, and still get the trademark "Fastest Car Care" for your shop.
If Apple had invented a phrase that wasn't a simple description of what their technology did, they would have been granted the trademark.
They probably have no interest in selling anything. The rough formula in pharma is: 1. Get venture capital based on some promising concept or prior research. 2. Develop drug (or in this case video game) using venture capital money 3. Do some early studies to see if drug might be effective 4. If it looks remotely promising, file with FDA 5. IPO! 6. Wait for FDA. File. Refile. Watch the stock price jump around like crazy.
At this point, if the FDA approves the drug, they will likely get snatched up by a big company. If the drug fails, then the whole company will sometimes fold, or sometimes raise more capital and start over again. Either way, the scientists, investors, and executives live to fight another day.
It may be true that battery life would suffer badly *today* trying to deliver an HD movie on my phone.
Oh, goodness, I didn't mean to imply that a phone couldn't do HD video - just that the ARM chip is probably not the right tool for the job. You likely need to use the dedicated video decoder to retain any sort of battery life. Therefore, you are at the mercy of whatever video chip happens to be in your phone/tablet. The grandparent's tablet is apparently limited to 854x480 by the hardware decoder. Some slick programmer might be able to decode video on the ARM chip and get higher resolution than that, but it would probably eat the battery.
LOL, yes, from my experience with this particular Irish derivative, all of the clan members do better the farther they are geographically separated from one another.
I can't imagine any city driver needed to get to 65mph coming off a stop light.
LOL, sorry I didn't make myself clear.
A car that can only get up to 65MPH probably is very slow getting to even 35MPH.
Fast acceleration is more important for passing and keeping up with traffic than a high top speed.
Exactly.
We had a national speed limit of 55mph for 20 years, and if memory serves, the world did not come to an end.
Did average speeds change much? I feel like I still set cruise control around 70-74MPH, even with the 65MPH speed limits - same as I did at 55MPH (though then I had to tail someone or risk getting a ticket). This study is the one that often gets cited - an oldie but goodie. But then this site lists a bunch of stats to the contrary - so I dunno. All I know is that I'm a lot happier at 74 than I am at 64:)
My starting ideology is pretty Libertarian, but I accept that the free market can't deal with external costs well and that individuals sometimes act irrationally. So maybe I'm more of a pragmatist. But anyway, when it comes to roads, I'd like to see the roads used to move the most cars in the shortest amount of time possible. Ultimately, they probably need to automate them - cars moving at different speeds is inherently a bad system.
I don't think you read the grandparent's post - he was saying that his hardware decoder only can do 854x480, so that would leave the full resolution up to the ARM, which I doubt it could handle - or if it did, it would suck the battery down very quickly.
Agreed, however I never argued the opposite... in fact, the entire point of my post was to show that we don't even have correlation on CO2 vs. Temperature, let alone causation
Okay then, causation != correlation.
You do not need correlation to have causation. That's the whole point of building the models.
All those same "many inputs" you mentioned that affected the Paleozoic and Mesozoic climate are affecting us today and it is grossly premature to suggest that the infinitesimal human contribution to atmospheric CO2 causes the climate of our planet to change in the slightest.
Ten or fifteen years ago, I would have straight-up agreed with you. There was way too much error in the models, with some of them almost as likely to predict cooling as warming. It's not premature anymore - the models have improved, and AFAIK, there is not a model in existence which comes to a contrary conclusion. Surely if the human contribution were as infinitesimal as you claim, it would be trivial to build a competing model which showed an alternate prediction? I think if you built a model you'd come to the same conclusion as everyone else who has put in the effort.
If cellulose ever became valuable, farmers would grow switchgrass where food formerly was grown - in general, if you have to farm it, it is still competing with food and raising the price of food.
Why would one want to use dirty old coal?
Only economic reasons. It's hard to beat "dig rock out of otherwise fallow ground" for cost.
Are you really saying that where you live if you drive the posted limit that other drivers are going to ram your car?
Depending on where you are and what time of day it is, driving at the speed limit in the US can be extremely dangerous. It might not feel dangerous to the person going that speed, but there is a huge chain reaction of sudden stops and aggressive lane changes going on behind them.
If you think about it, the speed limit doesn't matter at all - only the average speed of the drivers. Being a standard deviation or so outside of the mean is probably a problem either way. There's something called "traffic waves" and all sorts of people have fun experimenting with them.
I agree with your sentiment otherwise, though I would point out that a max speed of 62mph indicates a very underpowered vehicle, and most people would probably not buy such a beast. Even city drivers need some power off of the line or they will get swamped by traffic and cut off at every light.
You'll notice that during the Ordovician period, CO2 was well over 4000ppm, and sometimes upwards of 5000ppm, yet the temperatures near the end of that period were right at modern levels.
Correlation != Causation
That's why the people studying the climate have to build complicated models. CO2 is just one of the many inputs to those models. Stripping away just the CO2 input and trying to devine its effect on the environment through correlation alone would be like (car analogy coming...) monitoring only spark plug current and trying to correlate that with tire temperature.
there is absolutely no proof that such would endanger life on Earth in any way,
Probably not, but humans are awful at change. If people's property goes away or becomes suddenly unproductive or uninhabitable, they will fight each other until a new equilibrium is achieved. I know I just lectured you on correlation, but there is a suspicious correlation between environmental change and human conflict.
That said, I don't think there is much we can do about humans burning everything in sight. I take no issue with people trying to stop this, but ultimately I think we need to invest a lot more in mitigating the consequences. Develop plans to relocate people in low-lying areas, migrate farm land, setup irrigation systems and water plans, etc. Change may come over 100 years or so, and we will probably be fine in the developed world, but I'd still like to see the change come in an orderly fashion.
And tablets are going to replace desktop PCs/laptops? IMHO if they do we will be taking a step backwards in computing power
I'm afraid you are looking for a simple answer to a complicated question. I think the most concise answer is that they will replace many desktops and many laptops. But obviously they cannot replace computers that were being used for computationally intensive tasks, or for tasks with large storage needs, or for tasks which are ill suited to small screens or a touch interface.
I don't have a crystal ball, but my opinion is that they will take a huge chunk of growth out of the PC market (both laptops and desktops), but the PC market will remain stable.
It's a corruption of "Association Football", I believe, as opposed to rugby football and American football. All three kind of developed around the same time in the US.
I'm all for a little nationalist rivalry (otherwise what fun would soccer or the Olympics be?), but comparing two completely different airplanes seems a little screwy. The closest thing Boeing makes to the A380 is the refreshed 747, though they don't make anything quite that large - nor do they plan to. The closest thing Airbus makes to the 787 is the A340, though they don't make anything as small as the 787 with that kind of range - nor do they plan to.
Where they compete directly is the 737/A319/A320, 767/A330, and the 777/A340... That's where the sporting barbs should be aimed:)
One time my Irish-derivative friend sat across the table from me at the pub, holding a fork over the candle on the table for what seemed like about 5 minutes. The fork started to faintly glow, it was so hot - and he then had to start quickly switching hands to keep it over the fire.
Finally I stopped talking and just said, "What the FUCK are you doing???"
Yeah, once you get to the point of waving your hands and saying, "And then all that has to be done it to trick the user into running some arbitrary code," the exploit goes from "serious" to "surprised if it didn't work".
Slashdot Mirror
Now "multitouch" is a bad example, because it is very descriptive. But just to be a devil's advocate...
Just because a phrase gets used does not mean it can't be trademarked. For instance, "Bud" is a trademark of InBev (shortened form of Budweiser). This, despite the word "bud" used for hundreds of years.
Unlike the word "multitouch", "bud" has no descriptive purpose to the beer.
Apple would have been able to trademark Simul-Touch or some other non-word.
Honestly, had you ever used the phrase prior to 2007? That's when they filed for the trademark.
If I have two inventions, and they do the exact same thing, but one uses an analog circuit and the other a microprocessor with software logic - why can I patent the analog circuit version but not the software version that does the same thing?
What does MultiTouch as a trademark even mean?
Ohhhhhhhhhh, I feel a car analogy comin'...
It's a Dodge(tm) Ram(tm) pickup with Hemi(tm) V8.
Innovation doesn't count in trademarks either - it is the mark that you use for your trade, that is all. You can be a car mechanic, innovate nothing, and still get the trademark "Fastest Car Care" for your shop.
If Apple had invented a phrase that wasn't a simple description of what their technology did, they would have been granted the trademark.
They probably have no interest in selling anything. The rough formula in pharma is:
1. Get venture capital based on some promising concept or prior research.
2. Develop drug (or in this case video game) using venture capital money
3. Do some early studies to see if drug might be effective
4. If it looks remotely promising, file with FDA
5. IPO!
6. Wait for FDA. File. Refile. Watch the stock price jump around like crazy.
At this point, if the FDA approves the drug, they will likely get snatched up by a big company. If the drug fails, then the whole company will sometimes fold, or sometimes raise more capital and start over again. Either way, the scientists, investors, and executives live to fight another day.
When you've got a powerful political force intent on convincing people that any regulation is bad, I doubt anything like that's gonna happen.
People will completely ignore the politicians and their ideological madness if DOT saves them 30 seconds on their commute :)
It may be true that battery life would suffer badly *today* trying to deliver an HD movie on my phone.
Oh, goodness, I didn't mean to imply that a phone couldn't do HD video - just that the ARM chip is probably not the right tool for the job. You likely need to use the dedicated video decoder to retain any sort of battery life. Therefore, you are at the mercy of whatever video chip happens to be in your phone/tablet. The grandparent's tablet is apparently limited to 854x480 by the hardware decoder. Some slick programmer might be able to decode video on the ARM chip and get higher resolution than that, but it would probably eat the battery.
LOL, yes, from my experience with this particular Irish derivative, all of the clan members do better the farther they are geographically separated from one another.
I can't imagine any city driver needed to get to 65mph coming off a stop light.
LOL, sorry I didn't make myself clear.
A car that can only get up to 65MPH probably is very slow getting to even 35MPH.
Fast acceleration is more important for passing and keeping up with traffic than a high top speed.
Exactly.
We had a national speed limit of 55mph for 20 years, and if memory serves, the world did not come to an end.
Did average speeds change much? I feel like I still set cruise control around 70-74MPH, even with the 65MPH speed limits - same as I did at 55MPH (though then I had to tail someone or risk getting a ticket). This study is the one that often gets cited - an oldie but goodie. But then this site lists a bunch of stats to the contrary - so I dunno. All I know is that I'm a lot happier at 74 than I am at 64 :)
My starting ideology is pretty Libertarian, but I accept that the free market can't deal with external costs well and that individuals sometimes act irrationally. So maybe I'm more of a pragmatist. But anyway, when it comes to roads, I'd like to see the roads used to move the most cars in the shortest amount of time possible. Ultimately, they probably need to automate them - cars moving at different speeds is inherently a bad system.
I don't think you read the grandparent's post - he was saying that his hardware decoder only can do 854x480, so that would leave the full resolution up to the ARM, which I doubt it could handle - or if it did, it would suck the battery down very quickly.
Agreed, however I never argued the opposite... in fact, the entire point of my post was to show that we don't even have correlation on CO2 vs. Temperature, let alone causation
Okay then, causation != correlation.
You do not need correlation to have causation. That's the whole point of building the models.
All those same "many inputs" you mentioned that affected the Paleozoic and Mesozoic climate are affecting us today and it is grossly premature to suggest that the infinitesimal human contribution to atmospheric CO2 causes the climate of our planet to change in the slightest.
Ten or fifteen years ago, I would have straight-up agreed with you. There was way too much error in the models, with some of them almost as likely to predict cooling as warming. It's not premature anymore - the models have improved, and AFAIK, there is not a model in existence which comes to a contrary conclusion. Surely if the human contribution were as infinitesimal as you claim, it would be trivial to build a competing model which showed an alternate prediction? I think if you built a model you'd come to the same conclusion as everyone else who has put in the effort.
It also works with cellulose
If cellulose ever became valuable, farmers would grow switchgrass where food formerly was grown - in general, if you have to farm it, it is still competing with food and raising the price of food.
Why would one want to use dirty old coal?
Only economic reasons. It's hard to beat "dig rock out of otherwise fallow ground" for cost.
Are you really saying that where you live if you drive the posted limit that other drivers are going to ram your car?
Depending on where you are and what time of day it is, driving at the speed limit in the US can be extremely dangerous. It might not feel dangerous to the person going that speed, but there is a huge chain reaction of sudden stops and aggressive lane changes going on behind them.
If you think about it, the speed limit doesn't matter at all - only the average speed of the drivers. Being a standard deviation or so outside of the mean is probably a problem either way. There's something called "traffic waves" and all sorts of people have fun experimenting with them.
I agree with your sentiment otherwise, though I would point out that a max speed of 62mph indicates a very underpowered vehicle, and most people would probably not buy such a beast. Even city drivers need some power off of the line or they will get swamped by traffic and cut off at every light.
You'll notice that during the Ordovician period, CO2 was well over 4000ppm, and sometimes upwards of 5000ppm, yet the temperatures near the end of that period were right at modern levels.
Correlation != Causation
That's why the people studying the climate have to build complicated models. CO2 is just one of the many inputs to those models. Stripping away just the CO2 input and trying to devine its effect on the environment through correlation alone would be like (car analogy coming...) monitoring only spark plug current and trying to correlate that with tire temperature.
there is absolutely no proof that such would endanger life on Earth in any way,
Probably not, but humans are awful at change. If people's property goes away or becomes suddenly unproductive or uninhabitable, they will fight each other until a new equilibrium is achieved. I know I just lectured you on correlation, but there is a suspicious correlation between environmental change and human conflict.
That said, I don't think there is much we can do about humans burning everything in sight. I take no issue with people trying to stop this, but ultimately I think we need to invest a lot more in mitigating the consequences. Develop plans to relocate people in low-lying areas, migrate farm land, setup irrigation systems and water plans, etc. Change may come over 100 years or so, and we will probably be fine in the developed world, but I'd still like to see the change come in an orderly fashion.
It's a sport where 'world series' actually means the whole world is competing.
You haven't watched much baseball... not many Americans on the teams :)
He was brandishing a red-hot fork. My options were limited, and I was drunk enough that it didn't really hurt much.
And tablets are going to replace desktop PCs/laptops? IMHO if they do we will be taking a step backwards in computing power
I'm afraid you are looking for a simple answer to a complicated question. I think the most concise answer is that they will replace many desktops and many laptops. But obviously they cannot replace computers that were being used for computationally intensive tasks, or for tasks with large storage needs, or for tasks which are ill suited to small screens or a touch interface.
I don't have a crystal ball, but my opinion is that they will take a huge chunk of growth out of the PC market (both laptops and desktops), but the PC market will remain stable.
Does an ARM have the guts to decode half a million pixels?
Even if it does, what does that do to the battery?
I suspect your answer lies in one of those two questions.
Oh, man - it would get ugly if the Americans stormed out of the aircraft to celebrate before they landed.
It's a corruption of "Association Football", I believe, as opposed to rugby football and American football. All three kind of developed around the same time in the US.
I'm all for a little nationalist rivalry (otherwise what fun would soccer or the Olympics be?), but comparing two completely different airplanes seems a little screwy. The closest thing Boeing makes to the A380 is the refreshed 747, though they don't make anything quite that large - nor do they plan to. The closest thing Airbus makes to the 787 is the A340, though they don't make anything as small as the 787 with that kind of range - nor do they plan to.
Where they compete directly is the 737/A319/A320, 767/A330, and the 777/A340... That's where the sporting barbs should be aimed :)
A380 has 5000-ft cabin pressure, 787 has 6000-ft cabin pressure - so the A380 is better in this regard.
Windows on the 787 are 196.88 inches square vs "bigger" for the Airbus (I can't find the number). I doubt it makes much difference.
But why compare these two planes? They are for very different markets...
One time my Irish-derivative friend sat across the table from me at the pub, holding a fork over the candle on the table for what seemed like about 5 minutes. The fork started to faintly glow, it was so hot - and he then had to start quickly switching hands to keep it over the fire.
Finally I stopped talking and just said, "What the FUCK are you doing???"
And then he smiled, and he branded my arm.
Yeah, once you get to the point of waving your hands and saying, "And then all that has to be done it to trick the user into running some arbitrary code," the exploit goes from "serious" to "surprised if it didn't work".