While it's obvious that poker is just a fad, it's way too early to say that poker has peaked. In fact the only evidence that poker has peaked is the fact that the stock of Party went down.
But what about the fact that Party often has over 70,000 players online at once? What about the fact that the World Series of Poker had over 5600 entrants, over 2 times the number of entrants the year before. How about the fact that Pokerstars is currently running the World Championship of Online Poker, and getting 3000+ entrants into a tourney with a $215 buyin. Or 2300 entrants in a $215 tourney held on a Wednesday afternoon (Eastern time). Or that each of the events so far has doubled (or nearly so) the number of "guaranteed entrants."
...after all, when fleeing a storm, the first thing you grab is your laptop and wifi card!
Depends on how much advance notice you have. If you're house is on fire and you need to get just the important stuff, you get people out first, then pets, and probably don't worry about belongings.
The people in the storm area had several hours to get out. Easily enough time to decide what to get. My laptop is certainly one of the items I would take. It's small, so it takes little room, and is tremendously valuable. Why wouldn't I take it?
Phoenix doesn't sit on an aquafier, it gets water from a series of canals that direct water from various rivers. As for being inhospitable, I agree. But the 3 million who live in Vegas and Phoenix may disagree. And there is such a thing as air conditioning.
If you haven't noticed, auto manufacturers are in the midst of a huge horsepower war that hasn't been seen in decades. 400 bhp is now becoming standard on upper-end luxury vehicles, with the 500hp threshold being crossed by vehicles still south of 100k.
Not just upper end cars. My first car was a 1984 Honda Prelude--a "sport/gt" car. It only had 130hp (I think). Now you can get a Honda Civic with 127hp.
I remember when my Dad got a 1987 Acura Legend Coupe. It was considered a performance luxury car at the time and had a lot of HP--161. Nowadays, the base model Honda Accord has nearly the same power (160), and the V-6 models have 240.
And, as others have pointed out, the "house" gets a cut of every pot already. It's not worth risking everything they have to get a couple of big pots. It's the same reason the Vegas casinos are on the up and up. Sure, they could cheat you and could probably get away with it for a while. But if they get caught, their revenue goes down to zero. Might as well keep collecting $.25 to $3.00 per hand. (There are 4000 or more tables and each table plays at least 60 hands per hour. That's a minimum of $60k per hour.) Is it worth risking to get an extra few bucks?
I'm inclined to think whomever controls the server on an online site can skim off as much as they feel like, they just need to keep it under control so people win enough to keep coming back since they need butts in the seats. How exactly do you know one of the players in a game isn't the house and they aren't clicking a mouse to pick the cards they need to win a big hand.
There are literally thousands of people on the big poker sites at any one time. If the big site was caught cheating, they would lose that business pretty quickly. Check out any poker forum and you constantly see people trying to catch the servers cheating. Hasn't been done yet, (to my knowledge).
Here's a guess--to record HD content onto their DVR. Since the box will be hooked up to their HD player, why would they want to record to media anyway?
So the work done by Inventor A would be by definition prior art, so how is prior art unchanged if Inventor B is granted a patent merely by filing first?
Prior art means published prior art. In my hypo, Inventor A never published anything. Inventor Z did.
There seems to be a misconception on this site over what the terms "first to file" and "first to invent" actually mean. I'll clear it up.
Let's say there are two inventors. Inventor A invents his product on January 1, 2005. Inventor B invents the exact same product on January 10, 2005. Inventor B gets a patent application filed on February 1, 2005. Inventor A incurs a slight delay and files a patent application on March 1, 2005.
In a "first to file" country, the question of who invented the product is simple--whoever files the application first is the inventor. Therefore, Inventor B obtains the Patent and Inventor A is SOL.
In a "first to invent" country, circumstances are different. The patent office will tell Inventor A that Inventor B invented it first because he filed the application first. But if Inventor A can prove that he actually invented it first, Inventor A gets the patent, not Inventor B.
These two terms have absolutely nothing to do with prior art. If inventor Z invented the same device on December 1, 2004, but chose not to file a patent application, he can still show that neither Inventor A nor Inventor B deserve the patent because Inventor Z is the actual inventor of the product.
First to file only refers to who gets the invention when two inventors file applications for the same invention. It has nothing to do with prior art. If you invent something and you want to prevent it from being patented, the solution is simple--publish it. You then have proof that you invented it before the Big Corporation.
A continuation application is method that is used to continue the prosecution of a patent after a final rejection has been issued by the Patent Office.
While true, continuations are not solely used for that purpose. In broadest terms, a continuation application allows an inventor to claim aspects of the invention that were disclosed, but not claimed, in the parent application. A continuation application must be filed while the parent application is still pending (i.e., before allowance).
It's only good enough until you actually see HDTV in action. I don't have HDTV and have never seen HDTV outside of Best Buy. Most of my friends don't have HDTV. Except for one. I was at his house this weekend and watched a movie in full HDTV glory. As he readily admitted to me, he can barely stand to watch DVDs or SD broadcasts now because the quality is so much lower than HDTV.
Stay away from the small 10 person money games and you should be alright as well as have a great time.
No reason to stay away from them. First, there are so many available games, it would be difficult for collusion to occur. (If you don't like your table, you go to another one). Second, at lower limits, it's simply not worth a cheaters time to do so. Even if you do believe there are cheaters in online poker. They are more likely to be at the 100/200 game than the 0.50/1.00 game.
Moreover, it's definitely possible to make money playing cash games. I know people who earn $500-$1000 a week just playing low limits ($2/4 to $5/10) a few hours a day. It's also easier to earn bonuses playing ring games than tournaments. Party Poker and Pokerstars both offer bonuses just for playing hands. In ring games, you get credit toward the bonus merely being at the table (you don't have to play a hand). In tourneys, the credit you get is fixed by the buy-in amount. You luck out in a tournament and play for 4 hours and win something--you get the same credit (towards your bonus) as busting out the first hand of the tournament.
However, as you point out, while you can make steady money playing ring games (if you're good), you can't make BIG money unless you play tourneys. (Both Pokerstars and Party Poker run weekly tournaments with first prizes in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. (Top prize in the most recent Pokerstars tournament was $127k.)
I was in Vegas last month. Luxor and TI accepts coins. Mandalay Bay, Harrahs, and Rio all only accepts bills. To cash out, you get a voucher, which you then turn into real money at a self-service machine or at a cashier. A lot more convenient than coins. Coins are dirty and cashing out can take a while, if you have a big winner (just the actual dispensing of coins takes a while). In contrast, you have a big winner at the Rio, you print out a voucher and cash out yourself.
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They both have pop-ups. But they aren't continuous and it's both just a single pop-up when you start the program.
But what about the fact that Party often has over 70,000 players online at once? What about the fact that the World Series of Poker had over 5600 entrants, over 2 times the number of entrants the year before. How about the fact that Pokerstars is currently running the World Championship of Online Poker, and getting 3000+ entrants into a tourney with a $215 buyin. Or 2300 entrants in a $215 tourney held on a Wednesday afternoon (Eastern time). Or that each of the events so far has doubled (or nearly so) the number of "guaranteed entrants."
Gambling is illegal in 49 of the 50 states (with exceptions for Indian casinos, Atlantic City, and poker rooms in California.)
Exactly. Apparently Netscape had some memos where they talked about "killing" Mosaic.
Not true for all systems. My most recent build had a terrible amount of noise in the system. Pop in a sound card, all the noise is gone.
Depends on how much advance notice you have. If you're house is on fire and you need to get just the important stuff, you get people out first, then pets, and probably don't worry about belongings.
The people in the storm area had several hours to get out. Easily enough time to decide what to get. My laptop is certainly one of the items I would take. It's small, so it takes little room, and is tremendously valuable. Why wouldn't I take it?
Minor nitpick--Reebok is the official equipment supplier of the NFL, not Russel.
Phoenix doesn't sit on an aquafier, it gets water from a series of canals that direct water from various rivers. As for being inhospitable, I agree. But the 3 million who live in Vegas and Phoenix may disagree. And there is such a thing as air conditioning.
Not just upper end cars. My first car was a 1984 Honda Prelude--a "sport/gt" car. It only had 130hp (I think). Now you can get a Honda Civic with 127hp.
I remember when my Dad got a 1987 Acura Legend Coupe. It was considered a performance luxury car at the time and had a lot of HP--161. Nowadays, the base model Honda Accord has nearly the same power (160), and the V-6 models have 240.
The desert. Vegas and Phoenix are pretty immune to the things you listed above.
The point isn't to save time. It's to make yourself healthy, while not polluting the environment.
And, as others have pointed out, the "house" gets a cut of every pot already. It's not worth risking everything they have to get a couple of big pots. It's the same reason the Vegas casinos are on the up and up. Sure, they could cheat you and could probably get away with it for a while. But if they get caught, their revenue goes down to zero. Might as well keep collecting $.25 to $3.00 per hand. (There are 4000 or more tables and each table plays at least 60 hands per hour. That's a minimum of $60k per hour.) Is it worth risking to get an extra few bucks?
There are literally thousands of people on the big poker sites at any one time. If the big site was caught cheating, they would lose that business pretty quickly. Check out any poker forum and you constantly see people trying to catch the servers cheating. Hasn't been done yet, (to my knowledge).
Here's a guess--to record HD content onto their DVR. Since the box will be hooked up to their HD player, why would they want to record to media anyway?
Even today, almost all major motion pictures are shot on film. Film is higher resolution than DVD. They just need to reconvert the film into HD.
I hardly even notice the ads. And I've never clicked on one.
Prior art means published prior art. In my hypo, Inventor A never published anything. Inventor Z did.
Totally and completely wrong.
There seems to be a misconception on this site over what the terms "first to file" and "first to invent" actually mean. I'll clear it up.
Let's say there are two inventors. Inventor A invents his product on January 1, 2005. Inventor B invents the exact same product on January 10, 2005. Inventor B gets a patent application filed on February 1, 2005. Inventor A incurs a slight delay and files a patent application on March 1, 2005.
In a "first to file" country, the question of who invented the product is simple--whoever files the application first is the inventor. Therefore, Inventor B obtains the Patent and Inventor A is SOL.
In a "first to invent" country, circumstances are different. The patent office will tell Inventor A that Inventor B invented it first because he filed the application first. But if Inventor A can prove that he actually invented it first, Inventor A gets the patent, not Inventor B.
These two terms have absolutely nothing to do with prior art. If inventor Z invented the same device on December 1, 2004, but chose not to file a patent application, he can still show that neither Inventor A nor Inventor B deserve the patent because Inventor Z is the actual inventor of the product.
First to file only refers to who gets the invention when two inventors file applications for the same invention. It has nothing to do with prior art. If you invent something and you want to prevent it from being patented, the solution is simple--publish it. You then have proof that you invented it before the Big Corporation.
While true, continuations are not solely used for that purpose. In broadest terms, a continuation application allows an inventor to claim aspects of the invention that were disclosed, but not claimed, in the parent application. A continuation application must be filed while the parent application is still pending (i.e., before allowance).
That's because you have a 34" TV. SD on a 60" screen looks terrible compared to HD on the same screen.
It's only good enough until you actually see HDTV in action. I don't have HDTV and have never seen HDTV outside of Best Buy. Most of my friends don't have HDTV. Except for one. I was at his house this weekend and watched a movie in full HDTV glory. As he readily admitted to me, he can barely stand to watch DVDs or SD broadcasts now because the quality is so much lower than HDTV.
Correction, it should read, "Ordinary people will discover DivX rips (family, friends of pirates) and watch downconverted, low quality HD content.
No reason to stay away from them. First, there are so many available games, it would be difficult for collusion to occur. (If you don't like your table, you go to another one). Second, at lower limits, it's simply not worth a cheaters time to do so. Even if you do believe there are cheaters in online poker. They are more likely to be at the 100/200 game than the 0.50/1.00 game.
Moreover, it's definitely possible to make money playing cash games. I know people who earn $500-$1000 a week just playing low limits ($2/4 to $5/10) a few hours a day. It's also easier to earn bonuses playing ring games than tournaments. Party Poker and Pokerstars both offer bonuses just for playing hands. In ring games, you get credit toward the bonus merely being at the table (you don't have to play a hand). In tourneys, the credit you get is fixed by the buy-in amount. You luck out in a tournament and play for 4 hours and win something--you get the same credit (towards your bonus) as busting out the first hand of the tournament.
However, as you point out, while you can make steady money playing ring games (if you're good), you can't make BIG money unless you play tourneys. (Both Pokerstars and Party Poker run weekly tournaments with first prizes in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. (Top prize in the most recent Pokerstars tournament was $127k.)
I was in Vegas last month. Luxor and TI accepts coins. Mandalay Bay, Harrahs, and Rio all only accepts bills. To cash out, you get a voucher, which you then turn into real money at a self-service machine or at a cashier. A lot more convenient than coins. Coins are dirty and cashing out can take a while, if you have a big winner (just the actual dispensing of coins takes a while). In contrast, you have a big winner at the Rio, you print out a voucher and cash out yourself.