If one $500 panel could deprive them of $10k in electricity bills over 10 years...? The return on investment in solar panels currently is over 3 years, and quite beyond affordable for Joe Average. With this technology it could drop below 6 months, making the tech affordable and saturating the market within some 10 years (because once your roof provides you with all the electricity you need, you don't buy more panels "because you can afford to".) With surplus energy electric cars would become common too.
Essentially, cheap solar energy plus reasonable energy storage would mean death to the energetic sector.
Wait... Isn't there a clause of "loss due to lack of use" on trademarks? Same as "loss due to lack of protection", I'm pretty sure a trademark can be lost due to lack of release of any actual product covered under it. (of course if Activision still sells original Kings' Quest, as some collector's edition or such, this is no-case, but if the product line is shut down for more than a few years, I'm pretty sure the trademark is lost... there is no such thing as "domain-squatting" for trademarks. I'm just not sure about the period...)
see Palm suing over the Netbook(tm) and all the likehood of failing to win.
You can't allow your trademarked names float freely around the market unattended. You can't just say "let it be, let them use that name, we don't care".
You must seek, acknowledge and then decide: Is it harmful or is it positive to our company?
In the first case, you request cease&desist, and on failure to do so, you litigate. In the other case, you grant a license to use the trademark, officially endorsing the activity.
Failure to pick either of the two routes endangers your trademark. But blindly following only the first one really damages your PR.
The options of a company whose trademark is "endangered" by 3rd party works are - litigate (cease & desist) - legalize (license & support).
Vivendi's trademark of Kings Quest was never in danger because the fan-made sequel was officially licensed and endorsed by the company. It wasn't unattended infringement which endangers a trademark, it was a child project.
Activision's move here is totally unreasonable and without a bit of common sense (the new game could only draw more attention and purchases to the franchise, and it would cost them zero - free marketing.) They are really shooting their own foot there.
Especially if you consider the cost of your time. I can wash my socks myself, which will cost me $10 in water, electricity and washing powder, or I can use the time to work at my project which will bring be $50 over that time, and spend $20 from that on paying someone to wash my socks.
RS232 is easy to program. If it's a switch without OS or some other embedded device, RS232 is the easiest and fastest way. Sure on the PC side there are the problems of baud, parity and so on. Thing is on the device side you can get a working bidi buffered transmission within 30 lines of assembler (100-200 if you have no UART and need to push each bit yourself). Writing equivalent of "hello world" over USB becomes kilobytes. And if you go into a web interface, you quickly lose enthusiasm as you realize on top of CGI you need to write the web server, the TCP stack, the IP stack, and if you're unlucky, the Ethernet protocol stack (in VHDL) as well.
On top of that, a thousand things can go wrong in writing USB or Ethernet or whatever. RS232 is rugged, fault-proof, it works from moment zero. You will be able to communicate with bootloader which has no idea what ethernet is, you will be able to diagnose faults when 90% of essential peripherials are fried, and if the cable goes loose, just move it around a bit and the connection will be back, no timeouts, no disconnects, no "intelligence" to get in your way.
And if you open various devices that use USB instead of serial, you will find a neat little FDDI, Profilic or such chip connected to the USB interface. The devices really connect over RS232. They just have the "RS232 over USB dongle" built in.
production of alcohol fit for human consumption costs about $0.06 per liter in raw materials and energy. Triple that with labor, packaging and transport. Flavor, marketing, controls, it all won't get the costs above $1/bottle. It's all about taxes...
As for poisoning alcohol, I don't know about the US but in Europe it's poisoned with chemicals that induce strong nausea and vomiting but no lasting effects. They will definitely make you regret drinking it, but won't hurt you in the long run.
Goddamnit, it's not like the letter is written in some prehistoric code that will take months to decrypt. 90% of the article is about fates of the paper, less than two short paragraphs on what is written on the paper.
That is what "well documented" really, really comes in.
Not just decent comments on all functions, but a separate document that binds it all together, explaining bigger image of things: the architecture of the project, its flavors, design patterns used (where, why and how), things missing or that could be done better, caveats of "touching this innocent-looking thing will break X", and so on. But above all, the big image of things.
Every sensibly done project is usually up to ten big modules strung together in some way, and optionally with a whole bunch of similar small modules attached to specific big modules (GUI module -> screens, database module -> transactions etc). Each of these big modules may be a class or a group of classes, distributed over one or several, or a hundred files. You need to understand what they do, how they are called, what comprises the entirety of the module, what purpose it serves and how it achieves its ends. It's almost never obvious from code comments. A good drawing helps. How often will you see a program structure diagram attached to any Open Source project?
Most software developers have these in their heads when they work on a program, and if a new person joins a project, they help them build it in their heads, tutoring them. But when a project is left in a repository, it really needs such documentation...
On the other hand, if you lack enthusiasm to continue developing your program, will you find enough to document it that well?
quicktime video is a container format, a file with.mov extension. It can contain a number of codecs and be played by a number of players, but if a player claims "quicktime only", it doesn't mean it uses quicktime framework to play.avi,.mkv,.mp4,.wmv. It means it supports only.mov and will refuse to play files in any other container format, even using compatible codecs. So it won't play a page with.avi embedded in it.
So maybe the platform can do it. Just like iPad's CPU can run any binaries compiled for it. But Apple makes sure it will play only what Apple allows it to play.
*shrug* not really - the developers can still make their code as they see fit, they just can't use it to connect to Linden Labs servers. They are free to host their own though.
nope, just good regen. Fucking casual noob, with regenerating health, that's what I am. (the regulations say 450ml per donation, 8 weeks apart at least. That's 40 donations, with 6 per year limit and a lot of extra quarantine conditions (dentist - another month. Injury involving stitches - half a year...). That's at least six and a half years of donating, realistically more like eight.)
After donating 18 liters of blood, achieving the Ist Degree Honorable Blood Donor title, a document and a badge stating that, and a permanent free public communication ticket, I really felt like I just finished a major questline.
It does. You just need to apply it properly. Not to cameras, but to mouth and wrists of school employees as you drive them away to a far closed quarry to dispose of.
Slashdot Mirror
Did the clause except after past the contract termination date?
If he was fired, the contract was no longer binding.
If one $500 panel could deprive them of $10k in electricity bills over 10 years...? The return on investment in solar panels currently is over 3 years, and quite beyond affordable for Joe Average. With this technology it could drop below 6 months, making the tech affordable and saturating the market within some 10 years (because once your roof provides you with all the electricity you need, you don't buy more panels "because you can afford to".) With surplus energy electric cars would become common too.
Essentially, cheap solar energy plus reasonable energy storage would mean death to the energetic sector.
I guess big oil, energy and coal companies are already in talks about take-over on the new startup.
Just to prevent it from ever entering the market.
There's plastic, and then there's plastic. Some modern plastics are quite explosive.
Wait... Isn't there a clause of "loss due to lack of use" on trademarks?
Same as "loss due to lack of protection", I'm pretty sure a trademark can be lost due to lack of release of any actual product covered under it.
(of course if Activision still sells original Kings' Quest, as some collector's edition or such, this is no-case, but if the product line is shut down for more than a few years, I'm pretty sure the trademark is lost... there is no such thing as "domain-squatting" for trademarks. I'm just not sure about the period...)
see Palm suing over the Netbook(tm) and all the likehood of failing to win.
You can't allow your trademarked names float freely around the market unattended. You can't just say "let it be, let them use that name, we don't care".
You must seek, acknowledge and then decide: Is it harmful or is it positive to our company?
In the first case, you request cease&desist, and on failure to do so, you litigate.
In the other case, you grant a license to use the trademark, officially endorsing the activity.
Failure to pick either of the two routes endangers your trademark. But blindly following only the first one really damages your PR.
The options of a company whose trademark is "endangered" by 3rd party works are
- litigate (cease & desist)
- legalize (license & support).
Vivendi's trademark of Kings Quest was never in danger because the fan-made sequel was officially licensed and endorsed by the company. It wasn't unattended infringement which endangers a trademark, it was a child project.
Activision's move here is totally unreasonable and without a bit of common sense (the new game could only draw more attention and purchases to the franchise, and it would cost them zero - free marketing.) They are really shooting their own foot there.
Especially if you consider the cost of your time.
I can wash my socks myself, which will cost me $10 in water, electricity and washing powder, or I can use the time to work at my project which will bring be $50 over that time, and spend $20 from that on paying someone to wash my socks.
RS232 is easy to program. If it's a switch without OS or some other embedded device, RS232 is the easiest and fastest way.
Sure on the PC side there are the problems of baud, parity and so on. Thing is on the device side you can get a working bidi buffered transmission within 30 lines of assembler (100-200 if you have no UART and need to push each bit yourself). Writing equivalent of "hello world" over USB becomes kilobytes. And if you go into a web interface, you quickly lose enthusiasm as you realize on top of CGI you need to write the web server, the TCP stack, the IP stack, and if you're unlucky, the Ethernet protocol stack (in VHDL) as well.
On top of that, a thousand things can go wrong in writing USB or Ethernet or whatever. RS232 is rugged, fault-proof, it works from moment zero. You will be able to communicate with bootloader which has no idea what ethernet is, you will be able to diagnose faults when 90% of essential peripherials are fried, and if the cable goes loose, just move it around a bit and the connection will be back, no timeouts, no disconnects, no "intelligence" to get in your way.
And if you open various devices that use USB instead of serial, you will find a neat little FDDI, Profilic or such chip connected to the USB interface. The devices really connect over RS232. They just have the "RS232 over USB dongle" built in.
production of alcohol fit for human consumption costs about $0.06 per liter in raw materials and energy. Triple that with labor, packaging and transport. Flavor, marketing, controls, it all won't get the costs above $1/bottle. It's all about taxes...
As for poisoning alcohol, I don't know about the US but in Europe it's poisoned with chemicals that induce strong nausea and vomiting but no lasting effects. They will definitely make you regret drinking it, but won't hurt you in the long run.
Unless Ubisoft are utter morons ...what makes you think they aren't?
Because the whole idea in the first place makes me really think they are.
My apps, my contacts, my music and more importantly my life were back.
You should really see a dotor about your addiction. I mean, seriously, that's just a phone!
Goddamnit, it's not like the letter is written in some prehistoric code that will take months to decrypt. 90% of the article is about fates of the paper, less than two short paragraphs on what is written on the paper.
That is what "well documented" really, really comes in.
Not just decent comments on all functions, but a separate document that binds it all together, explaining bigger image of things: the architecture of the project, its flavors, design patterns used (where, why and how), things missing or that could be done better, caveats of "touching this innocent-looking thing will break X", and so on. But above all, the big image of things.
Every sensibly done project is usually up to ten big modules strung together in some way, and optionally with a whole bunch of similar small modules attached to specific big modules (GUI module -> screens, database module -> transactions etc). Each of these big modules may be a class or a group of classes, distributed over one or several, or a hundred files. You need to understand what they do, how they are called, what comprises the entirety of the module, what purpose it serves and how it achieves its ends. It's almost never obvious from code comments. A good drawing helps. How often will you see a program structure diagram attached to any Open Source project?
Most software developers have these in their heads when they work on a program, and if a new person joins a project, they help them build it in their heads, tutoring them. But when a project is left in a repository, it really needs such documentation...
On the other hand, if you lack enthusiasm to continue developing your program, will you find enough to document it that well?
no, it's not.
quicktime video is a container format, a file with .mov extension. It can contain a number of codecs and be played by a number of players, but if a player claims "quicktime only", it doesn't mean it uses quicktime framework to play .avi, .mkv, .mp4, .wmv. It means it supports only .mov and will refuse to play files in any other container format, even using compatible codecs. So it won't play a page with .avi embedded in it.
So maybe the platform can do it. Just like iPad's CPU can run any binaries compiled for it. But Apple makes sure it will play only what Apple allows it to play.
Well, you can always buy iPod Touch, A.K.A iPad Nano.
I wonder: my ISP provides access only through NAT. I'm pretty sure they filter off my MAC as well. Does that mean I can't access SL any more?
*shrug* not really - the developers can still make their code as they see fit, they just can't use it to connect to Linden Labs servers. They are free to host their own though.
they shouldn't have DDoS'd them.
They should have added them to the list.
nope, just good regen. Fucking casual noob, with regenerating health, that's what I am.
(the regulations say 450ml per donation, 8 weeks apart at least. That's 40 donations, with 6 per year limit and a lot of extra quarantine conditions (dentist - another month. Injury involving stitches - half a year...). That's at least six and a half years of donating, realistically more like eight.)
use whatever local public transport (buses, trams, metro) for free, country-wide. (trains, planes and long-distance buses not covered).
After donating 18 liters of blood, achieving the Ist Degree Honorable Blood Donor title, a document and a badge stating that, and a permanent free public communication ticket, I really felt like I just finished a major questline.
...until someone prank-replaces a whiteboard marker with a waterproof one. ;)
buy 5 fresh get 1 rotten free.
It does.
You just need to apply it properly.
Not to cameras, but to mouth and wrists of school employees as you drive them away to a far closed quarry to dispose of.