With stupid people, I find it best to make a single point in a reply. And the best point to make is the fallacy of their argument, rather than to trade opinion.
Some patent officer needs their logic examined, just prior to being sacked.
In the history of Slashdot, was there ever a report of a patent that Slashdot users didn't think was invalid due to prior art? Where posters didn't claim the patent officer is wrong?
Given that some patents must actually be valid (not necessarily this one), there appears to be something wrong with the hivemind's concepts of what valid patents are.
Now I'm no expert on patents. But my guess is that it's the idea that prior art in and of itself disqualifies a patent. Because if you look at most patent applications (not necessarily this one), you'll see a list of prior art put there by the claimant himself.
Except a week has two ends and they fall at the ends of the week
It's always been "the weekend". Singular, not plural.
Sunday being the first day of the week and Saturday the last according to the Greco-Roman tradition
No. The Romans had the concept of Saturday and Sunday being the weekend. Not Sunday being the start of the week.
The whole concept of a week having an end, rather than it's reality as being a continuous cycle, comes from the bible, where The sabbath was the 7th day. So Saturday being the end of the week is a Jewish tradition, and Sunday being the end of the week is a christian one.
In things that have a natural direction, start comes before end. Sunday is part of the weekend, therefore the week started the previous Monday. So long as "weekend" is singular, the implication is that Monday is the start of the week.
So the world is becoming more green due to global warming?
The article doesn't say anything about the world becoming more green. Only that the north, above the 45th parallel is. That's Canada, Northern Europe, Russia and up to the arctic. It doesn't say anything about the balance between that and desertification nearer the equator.
It does fit with other studies and models to help confirm the reality of global warming though.
I'd be curious to see where the green belt lay during the Medieval warming period. Of course its existence has been discredited now, and tales of dairy farms and Viking settlements in Greenland have been dismissed as an anecdotal myth and stricken from Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warming_Period 8 mentions of Greenland, including a temperature chart, and a photo of a viking settlement. Conspiracy theorists operate entirely independently of the facts.
This would be the 19th Century where the wealth was made from stealing land from native Americans, and extracting natural resources such as gold and oil? Where the agricultural practices that would create the dust bowl were being created. Where cotton was picked by black slaves, and the railroads were built by the Chinese? Where the abuses of monopolies were rampant. Where a few became ultra-rich, but the majority were dirt poor?
Bravo! All attempts to limit political contributions are doomed to fail, as the incentives to bypass such limits are too enormous. The only solution is to reduce the power of the government as a whole.
The problems that America has (and they are relatively few, first world problems) are down to the power of corporations. Their bribing politicians with contributions is one one part of that. Reducing the power of government will not reduce the power of corporations at all, it'll actually increase it. And thus would be counter productive.
I remember when I got my Android phone - I worked with a bunch of iPhone users. I used to listen to them complain about they couldn't install cool app x, and said I had no trouble putting on my Android phone.
However, given that IOS, due to its widespread adoption, constitutes a big market for apps itself, and one that's artificially limited by Apple to have only one store - theirs.
You don't come under monopoly laws for having control of your own product. That's why printer manufacturers are allowed to control inks for their printers, razor manufacturers are allowed to control blades for their razors and console manufacturers are allowed to control games for their consoles. Microsoft was different, because many manufacturers manufacture PCs, and they had monopoly levels of OS on all of them. If they manufactured their own computer, and just put their own OS on it, as Apple do with Macs and iOS devices, then they would have been in the clear.
Adblockers dont allow the content (ads) to download to your computer why dont we have smarter adblockers that download them to a sandbox and immediately destroy them giving them the impression that we are seeing them?
Because two of the reasons for ad-blocking are to speed up web-browsing and to reduce data usage.
But some people might be willing to make the compromise you describe.
There is nothing dishonest about using an ad-blocker. There's no law that says you have to download the ads attached to a web page. There's nothing on the supposed tablets of stone that Moses brought off the mountain. There's no value system anywhere that says you should.
That the advertisers and the web site owner want you to, doesn't make it dishonest not to.
Everyone would have become aware of them because they'd see them on the road. And people that had a good experience of these new horseless carriages would have told their friends. If someone wanted to know about horseless carriages, they'd go over and chat to someone who had one, even if they didn't know them.
The advantages of these methods are that they'd get a much more truthful appraisal of the pros and cons than if they were "informed" by adverts.
However very often ads are the only way of creating revenue. Just like with tv, the ads is what it is about and the shows are there so we watch the ads.
In Britain the BBC doesn't show advertising. They are funded by an annual fee that TV users pay. 145UKP (216USD). And that gets more than just the lack of advert breaks. It also gets programmes that the commercial channels don't find profitable to make, such as period dramas, and science programs.
You didn't seem to understand his post. Did you not get as far as:
"Picasso had a saying - 'good artists copy, great artists steal' - and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas." - Steve Jobs
His point is that EVERYTHING is part based on other things that came before. And he's pointing out that the degree of Android being based on iOS was high, but that in this presentation that pretends to lay out the principles and techniques that Android UI was designed by, they left out bit where they studied iOS. No names, no pack drill.
He very clearly means what whilst desktop Linux GUIs are thrown together by anyone who wants to contribute, the Android UI is controlled by Google.
You can take what Google put out there, but you can't change Google's Android UI.
It might make you feel all warm and cuddly to classify both these as open source. And indeed they are. But Androids success is in part due to the fact that you FOSS enthusiasts can't fuck it up, as you did with the desktop Linux GUIs.
Slashdot Mirror
With stupid people, I find it best to make a single point in a reply. And the best point to make is the fallacy of their argument, rather than to trade opinion.
Some patent officer needs their logic examined, just prior to being sacked.
In the history of Slashdot, was there ever a report of a patent that Slashdot users didn't think was invalid due to prior art? Where posters didn't claim the patent officer is wrong?
Given that some patents must actually be valid (not necessarily this one), there appears to be something wrong with the hivemind's concepts of what valid patents are.
Now I'm no expert on patents. But my guess is that it's the idea that prior art in and of itself disqualifies a patent. Because if you look at most patent applications (not necessarily this one), you'll see a list of prior art put there by the claimant himself.
I'm British. We most commonly do dd/mm/yy. with a small minority of people doing dd-mm-yy.
The French also use dd/mm/yy. Not sure about the rest of Europe.
So your proposal won't work.
Except a week has two ends and they fall at the ends of the week
It's always been "the weekend". Singular, not plural.
Sunday being the first day of the week and Saturday the last according to the Greco-Roman tradition
No. The Romans had the concept of Saturday and Sunday being the weekend. Not Sunday being the start of the week.
The whole concept of a week having an end, rather than it's reality as being a continuous cycle, comes from the bible, where The sabbath was the 7th day. So Saturday being the end of the week is a Jewish tradition, and Sunday being the end of the week is a christian one.
In things that have a natural direction, start comes before end. Sunday is part of the weekend, therefore the week started the previous Monday. So long as "weekend" is singular, the implication is that Monday is the start of the week.
what days mark the ends of the week?
The problem with you line of thought is that the weekend is singular, not plural.
So the world is becoming more green due to global warming?
The article doesn't say anything about the world becoming more green. Only that the north, above the 45th parallel is. That's Canada, Northern Europe, Russia and up to the arctic. It doesn't say anything about the balance between that and desertification nearer the equator.
It does fit with other studies and models to help confirm the reality of global warming though.
I'd be curious to see where the green belt lay during the Medieval warming period. Of course its existence has been discredited now, and tales of dairy farms and Viking settlements in Greenland have been dismissed as an anecdotal myth and stricken from Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warming_Period
8 mentions of Greenland, including a temperature chart, and a photo of a viking settlement. Conspiracy theorists operate entirely independently of the facts.
This would be the 19th Century where the wealth was made from stealing land from native Americans, and extracting natural resources such as gold and oil? Where the agricultural practices that would create the dust bowl were being created. Where cotton was picked by black slaves, and the railroads were built by the Chinese? Where the abuses of monopolies were rampant. Where a few became ultra-rich, but the majority were dirt poor?
Bravo! All attempts to limit political contributions are doomed to fail, as the incentives to bypass such limits are too enormous. The only solution is to reduce the power of the government as a whole.
The problems that America has (and they are relatively few, first world problems) are down to the power of corporations. Their bribing politicians with contributions is one one part of that. Reducing the power of government will not reduce the power of corporations at all, it'll actually increase it. And thus would be counter productive.
Because you're a drama queen with no sense of proportion?
I remember when I got my Android phone - I worked with a bunch of iPhone users. I used to listen to them complain about they couldn't install cool app x, and said I had no trouble putting on my Android phone.
In your dreams.
If it's possible to build a browser in javascript or java, then you could run a browser in a browser.
If it was possible to run a browser in a browser, then you could do it on iOS too. There's no restrictions on web apps.
Interesting how you were prepared to make the most ridiculous excuses for Firefox OS though.
Having been given an unwanted present of an iPad (and now I can't get myself a real tablet for fear of offense)
First world problem.
"you have more money than brains" (or sense) is something that's only ever said by people who can't afford to buy the product in question.
Not everyone has to be a cheapskate.
There's no law saying you have to haggle.
However, given that IOS, due to its widespread adoption, constitutes a big market for apps itself, and one that's artificially limited by Apple to have only one store - theirs.
You don't come under monopoly laws for having control of your own product. That's why printer manufacturers are allowed to control inks for their printers, razor manufacturers are allowed to control blades for their razors and console manufacturers are allowed to control games for their consoles. Microsoft was different, because many manufacturers manufacture PCs, and they had monopoly levels of OS on all of them. If they manufactured their own computer, and just put their own OS on it, as Apple do with Macs and iOS devices, then they would have been in the clear.
Adblockers dont allow the content (ads) to download to your computer why dont we have smarter adblockers that download them to a sandbox and immediately destroy them giving them the impression that we are seeing them?
Because two of the reasons for ad-blocking are to speed up web-browsing and to reduce data usage.
But some people might be willing to make the compromise you describe.
There is nothing dishonest about using an ad-blocker. There's no law that says you have to download the ads attached to a web page. There's nothing on the supposed tablets of stone that Moses brought off the mountain. There's no value system anywhere that says you should.
That the advertisers and the web site owner want you to, doesn't make it dishonest not to.
Everyone would have become aware of them because they'd see them on the road. And people that had a good experience of these new horseless carriages would have told their friends. If someone wanted to know about horseless carriages, they'd go over and chat to someone who had one, even if they didn't know them.
The advantages of these methods are that they'd get a much more truthful appraisal of the pros and cons than if they were "informed" by adverts.
However very often ads are the only way of creating revenue. Just like with tv, the ads is what it is about and the shows are there so we watch the ads.
In Britain the BBC doesn't show advertising. They are funded by an annual fee that TV users pay. 145UKP (216USD). And that gets more than just the lack of advert breaks. It also gets programmes that the commercial channels don't find profitable to make, such as period dramas, and science programs.
This bit doesn't seem vacuous:
"that emphasizes 'real objects' over buttons and menus"
But it doesn't seem to describe Android. Given that it has 4 hardware buttons, one of them that brings up a menu.
You didn't seem to understand his post. Did you not get as far as:
"Picasso had a saying - 'good artists copy, great artists steal' - and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas."
- Steve Jobs
His point is that EVERYTHING is part based on other things that came before. And he's pointing out that the degree of Android being based on iOS was high, but that in this presentation that pretends to lay out the principles and techniques that Android UI was designed by, they left out bit where they studied iOS. No names, no pack drill.
i.e. Where KDE, Gnome and other Linux desktop GUIs don't get in the way.
Funny thing is, Linux users use the term Linux to refer to the kernel AND informally to refer to distributions based on that kernel.
It's only when Linux is attacked that they get all pedantic and prissy and object to the informal usage they themselves use all the time.
He very clearly means what whilst desktop Linux GUIs are thrown together by anyone who wants to contribute, the Android UI is controlled by Google.
You can take what Google put out there, but you can't change Google's Android UI.
It might make you feel all warm and cuddly to classify both these as open source. And indeed they are. But Androids success is in part due to the fact that you FOSS enthusiasts can't fuck it up, as you did with the desktop Linux GUIs.