FOX disagrees. They claim that the 1st ammendment gives them the right to lie and distort the news in order to protect sponsors from embarrasing reports and findings. This argument was upheld in court, and they are legally allowed to fire reporters for refusing an order to lie to the public and present it as investigated fact.
No they wouldn't. They are too busy claiming that DU dust is completely harmless, even when inhaled. They can't possible make any sort of fuss over some large piece of DU without revealing that they are perfectly aware of the dangers of radioactive heavy metals:D
Lets see now. The patents were filed for, not awarded, but filed, in April 2001, and May 2000.
Sony started selling their dualshock analong controllers in April of 1998. Legitimate or not, Sony was selling these "infringing" devices 2 years before the other company even applied for a patent on them.
Get your terminology right. You do not pump caps into asses, you pump lead. Caps, vis a vis asses, are either busted, or poped.
Eg: "Imma bust a cap in yo ass" = correct
"Imma pump yo ass fulla lead" = correct
"Imma pump a cap in yo ass" = incorrect
What are they teaching in school these days, anyways?
Here here! I actually talked to somebody who said that all punishment is wrong. I asked "So if somebody murdered your entire family, you wouldn't even want them locked up?" "No, I would want to help them, because they obviously are not well." "But what about the other people he could kill. Putting him in jail would prevent that" "So we should sacrifice his freedom for the supposed safety of some hypothetical person? That's not justice"
As for your first comment, there was fraud involved. Above and beyond the forged headers, they were selling $39.95 "FedEx Refund Processors". "Make $75 an hour working from home" and all that. That is why his lawyer made the comment about how it was the victims fault for being greedy.
In Canada, we pay taxes on blank tapes and CDs, and now minidiscs and MP3 players. In exchange, we can make personal copies onto these media. However, AFAIK, it does not cover downloads. So your $35 tax was to allow you to copy music from your CD's and put them on your iPod, or even borrow somebody else's CD and do the same, or take one out of the library, but NOT download them from the internet. But what is the difference between downloading it from somebody, and borring their CD? For one, you didn't pay a tax on your computer HD. Therefore, you can't copy music to it using this law. Now, I would imagine it is OK if you copy to your iPod and then delete, but it definitly isn't allowed if you don't delete it after.(Again, AFAIK, I havn't been keeping up)
However, there was a landmark case, in which the
judge ruled that it is the downloading that is illegal, NOT the sharing. His reasoning was if there is a photocopier in a library, and somebody uses it to make a full copy of a book (Not allowed) instead of a few pages (Allowed as fair use) the person using the tool is at fault, not the person who made the tool available. Thus, by this precadent, people are protected from RIAA style suits, since sharing even huge numbers of songs is legal in Canada.
You are roughly correct as to what the UCC is, but not that it is a violation of it. It is for returns on an item that "is not suitable for its intended purpose". It is not for items that the customer changed their mind and doesn't want anymore, it is not for items that the customer realizes they already own one of. It is for items that don't do what they say they do, whether due to misleading advertising, or damage or defect. So, the store must accept returns if the item says it has a feature, but it doesn't. (Anything an item's package claims it can do is obviously an intended purpose). It must also accept returns on any item demaged or defective in such a way as to render the item non-functional. For example, a TV with a smashed in tube must be accepted for return. However, if the case is cracked, but the TV still works, they do not have to accept the return, as the item is still fit for its intended purpose. But if you found it cheaper somewhere else, or you realized you already bought one yesterday, then its completely up to the store, they don't have to take it back if they don't want to.
And no, you can't say "But the intent of the purchace was to have a NEW sweater, not the same one again!" Because the law ISN'T about "Intended purpose for purchace," as you have written. Intended purpose means whether or not the item can do what it is intended for. A sweater is for wearing, not for being stylish and unique. If you BOUGHT it to be stylish and unique, and it isn't, that's tough luck for you, its intended purpose is to be worn, and it still can be.
In that case, Good News Bersl2! Manditory Governmental Mental Health Screening is here! Well, they are trying it out on children first. And pregenant women, too. As of 2005, all schools must hold regular screening for mental ilness in all of their students, and all pregenant women must also report for montly mental screening, during their entire pregenancy, and for 1 year after. You see, according to the "New Freedom Commission" mental problems are rampant in the "comsumers of all demographics", and often go undiagnosed. Therefore, they recommend that "consumers of all ages" be screened for mental illness regularly, starting at age 0! That's right, newborns must be screened, too!
Yearly screening for all school chidren is nearly here. Some people voted against it, saying its already a problem that children are diagnosed with diseases and given psychotropics for "normal childhood rambunciousness", and their parents arrested for NOT given them the drugs, and this screening will only result in an even larger percentage of the population being on mind altering drugs their entire life, when there is not a thing wrong with them. The vote was 94 Republicans and 1 single Democrat, against 118 Republicans, 196 Democrats, and 1 Independent, not enough to stop this ammendment to a bill that is otherwise all about Appropriations. Therefore, to stop the bill now, the only choice is to cut funding for schools and other programs!
And this is just the first step. As I said earlier, their ultimate goal is to screen "consumers of all ages." Just like Soviet Russia did, in fact. No need to adress critisizms from people who are then diagnosed with paranoid schitzophrenia, or dementia, right? And they cannot defend themselves against the charges, because they are not accused of any crime, they are just sick and need help.
Not quite. The Aspriin was lost in the USA, true. However, Thermos was not. Another one that is incorrectly thought to have been lost is Kleenex. Others that are still valid, despite being used as a generic term by most peopleXerox, Dumpster, Coke, Band-Aid, Jeep, Rollerblade, and Speedo. Why are they still valid? Because to lose it, another company has to use it to describe their product, and you have to let them.
In other words, it doesn't matter how many guys on the street, or TV characters, or whatever, call a waste bin a "Dumpster", they can keep their trademark. However, if another company sells a "Dumpster" the company holding the trademark either must sue, or give up the trademark.
The debates, although an important factor, are not the ONLY factor in determining the president. If you don't think candidates should be allowed to use anything private...well...no TV ads, no radio ads, newspaper, internet, nothing. You would never hear anything about any politicians, because all TV news is done by private corporations. Do you really think that _private_ TV stations should be FORCED to run free ads for all presidential candidates, just because they chose to donate some free ads to their favorite one?
But your assertion that a private corporation is in charge of who becomes the next president isn't far off (Although that has nothing to do with the debates) This election, votes will be counted by private corporations only. No public officials or conserned citizens will be allowed to observe the counting, nor will they be allowed to count for themselves, as the method of counting is private and propritary (And there is nothing to count, anyways). As Stalin once said "He who votes, controlls nothing. He who counts the votes, controlls everything."
Hmmm, interesting point, but lets imagine similar law about something else instead. Lets chose, say, rape. Now, lets say this law clearly defines what rape is: Sexual intercourse without permission (For the purpose of the analogy, lets ignore details such as intoxication, age, etc.) Well oh noes, thats a terrible law! Because this law prevents fantasizing, because you seldom ask for permission before that! I know it clearly says "sexual intercourse" but who cares about precise definitions and legality, a fantasy is kinda like the real thing, so legally they are indistingishable! They will use the patriot act to find out who has rented porno, and arrest everybody for rape! (Although some may try to argue that the situations involved in these videos invites mind-rape, we all know that "She was asking for it" is a completely unacceptable excuse, so the "implicit contract" defense will likely not hold)
My point? Town hall, auditoriums, school gyms, your pants, a hippo skull, the pope, Jupiter...none of these things are movie theaters. Any similarities (A big room where things are seen and heard) are insufficient. For the law to apply, it must actually BE a movie theater.
So what? NATO troops use Geneva banned weapons all the time. "Yes, this sniper rifle has been declared illegal for use against troops. But we don't aim at troops, we aim at their uniform. Any collateral damage as a result of our attacks on an inanimate object is regrettable, but unavoidable"
True. Unless, of course, the unwelcome contact is warranted. For example, I doubt a phone company will leave you alone if you tell them that their bill was an unwelcome form of contact, and to please stop sending them...
No, if it fails out of the gates, this will be the main reason why
It costs $30 US / month to play, PLUS any fees for games you want to play on it.
Multiplayer, if present, is online only, unlike other consoles, which allow you to play with friends
It has no "killer app" games, it only runs PC games...
...but not PC games you already own. Oh no, you need to buy them again
Although it is a PC, you cannot upgrade it. (Although this is true of any console, such as X-Box, you will continue to get games tweaked for the console. Not so here, new games for the phantom will continue to have higher and higher requirements, and will not be optimized)
You don't install the games, they all stream from the IL server
Even if your games are cached, you still need to authenticate with the IL server
If your internet connection goes down, you cannot play games.
Regardless of their claims, I don't see how they can possible stream such large games in the background as you play them. As Tom's Hardware pointed out, most games have all of their music and such in one big file, and it is quite difficult to only select the stuff you need for the current level
Want a good point? If you can hack the DRM, you can get a pretty sweet Linux box for $199. Athlon XP 2500+, 256 MB DDR RAM, GeForce 5700 PRO, 40 gb HD. But even if they sell millions as a result of this, it will still go bad, because I bet they are eating a loss and hoping to make it back on subscriptions (And so will probably be quick to DMCA any hint of hacking it)
But not ! or ?. Those only go inside if it was part of the quote.
For example
He said "What?"
That is a statement. Somebody asked "What?".
Did he say "Yes"?
That is a question. You are saking if he said "Yes"
Also, you are adding punctuation that wasn't in the quote? If the quote was a sentance that ended with a period, then you have added nothing. If your quote was not the whole sentance, then you NEED... at the end, instead. If you are throwing a complete quote in the middle of a sentance, the only change you make is the period to a comma.
You forgot the other difference. Bush says the US is in Iraq forever, and Kerry says that maybe they'll pull out in 4 years...as long as you elect him for his second term, they are as good as gone.
No, the major issue is that some vets paid by Bush say Kerry didn't earn all his medals. And some other people say Bush lost his wings for refusing a drug test, and then deserted his unit in wartime. So really, the entire election is about the Vietnam war.
You're right about the "Big Government Liberals" too;)
Here is a telling little graph of the federal deficit. Feel free to check the numbers yourself at the Treasury Department (These numbers seem higher than the reported deficit. This is because they are calculated by subtracting the national debt from one year to the next. Clearly, if you used to owe 5$, and now owe $10, you must have borrowed another $5, and therefore, had a REAL deficit of $5, including interest on your current debts, of course)
At first I wanted to diagree, as the article says it is a patent on hashing files on peer to peer networks. However, Halo1 was kind enough to track down the patent in question and it shows that the patent, is, in fact, on hashing in general. In fact, it would most likely apply to a simple hash table. They basically define the concept of the function being deterministic, and collision resistant, but in lawyer speak.
The run down on what they are patenting is, creating a unique identifier for any file, that is signifigantly smaller than the file, and where there is low probability of being able to find a collision. This identifier is only based on the data, not the file name or creation date. And it can be used to determine if one has the file, simply by comparing it to a list of known identifiers. Sounds an awful lot like a general description of any hashing scheme.
However, the good news is that was filed in October 1997. I'm pretty sure that somebody thought of using hashes to keep track of files, whther over a network or locally, well before 1997.
Of course, many of these silly patent problems would be no problem to beat in court. However, the system doesn't work that way, and these people could make a lot of money by settling with people who can't afford a lawyer. The good news is they went after the RIAA, who has lots of money and lawyers. Expect a quick defeat and patent invalidation.
Or, say I read 10 studies on how many shooting deaths there are in a year in various nations. For Japan, Germany, Canada, Australia, the UK, etc. I chose the lowest number out of all 10, and for the USA, I chose the highest number. All the numbers are "Facts" but its ethically wrong to pick and chose different studies. Clearly, there is no reason to do this other than deception. The numbers were striking even WITHOUT having to do that...I don't understand why he had to deceive to make his point even more shocking...
Well, because people acting on his behalf DID commit the crimes. This person, on the other hand, did not tell anybody to break any laws.
If you say he should be extradited, then the Slashdot editors should be extradited to China. After all, they have published a number of unflattering articles about the Chinese government, and their censorship. Since it was available online, it just may be available in China (Firewall notwithstanding) thus, they are clearly breaking Chinese law, and should be subject to its laws. Or a porn website? Should be extradited to Iran or some other fundamentalist theocracy. Do you get the picture?
Fine, I don't think they are extradition countries, but its still a valid point. But how about some nations that ARE signatories?
Neo-nazi's should be extradited to France to face hate speech charges. People with violent Flash/Java games on their website should be extradited to Germany for distrubuting violent video games to the German people.
Not quite true. Harold Warp did invent Flex-O-Glass, and there is a Harold Warp Memorial Drive. But his last name is a coincidence. Warp has meant to twist or bend something for hundreds of years. It originates from the old english word "weorpan". In 1346 it was used as a weaving term. (When weaving, you start with lengthwise threads, the "Warp" and weave the "Woof" perpendicularly across it). In 1440 the word Warp was first recorded as meaning to twist out of shape.
This is not the only coincidental last name. I'm sure many are familar with the inventor of the ball and suction device, still used in toilets today. His name was Thomas Crapper, but "crap", meaning defication, had been slang for at least 50 years before he invented the toilet. And it has meant general refuse for a great deal longer than that. The sirname Crapper originats in the 13th century, and is a variation of "Cropper", an occupation sirname, like Cartwright, Smith, and so on.
You're making the same assumption that some other people posting today have: That the people paying to have a competitor "advertised" with spam are the same people who pay to to have their OWN website advertised. Why would they be? Sure, some small beans 0rg4nic V1agr4 website may not really have any competitors they care enough about to eliminate. But what about big companies? What is to stop them from hiring a third party to do just this? Just as an example, why couldn't Microsoft hire somebody to spamvertise Redhat? If they hire some Russian to use some zombies to send it, how could it be traced back to Microsoft? How could Redhat prove they didn't hire the Russian themselves? They can't, short of arresting him and seizing his records...assuming they could even trace the zombies back to him in the first place.
Very true, but it is pretty useless to the average home user. It would have been better to disable by default it in XP Home, at the least. If you're one of the few home users who uses it for something useful, you probably know how to turn it on:)
A resturaunt likewise does not charge you for entering. If they don't offer what they advertised, you are free to stand up and leave. Additionally, in Europe, many ISPs charge by the bit, and for dial up, the telephone company charges by the minute for local calls. So viewing the website DOES cost you something.
Slashdot Mirror
FOX disagrees. They claim that the 1st ammendment gives them the right to lie and distort the news in order to protect sponsors from embarrasing reports and findings. This argument was upheld in court, and they are legally allowed to fire reporters for refusing an order to lie to the public and present it as investigated fact.
No they wouldn't. They are too busy claiming that DU dust is completely harmless, even when inhaled. They can't possible make any sort of fuss over some large piece of DU without revealing that they are perfectly aware of the dangers of radioactive heavy metals :D
Lets see now. The patents were filed for, not awarded, but filed, in April 2001, and May 2000.
Sony started selling their dualshock analong controllers in April of 1998. Legitimate or not, Sony was selling these "infringing" devices 2 years before the other company even applied for a patent on them.
Get your terminology right. You do not pump caps into asses, you pump lead. Caps, vis a vis asses, are either busted, or poped.
Eg: "Imma bust a cap in yo ass" = correct
"Imma pump yo ass fulla lead" = correct
"Imma pump a cap in yo ass" = incorrect
What are they teaching in school these days, anyways?
Here here! I actually talked to somebody who said that all punishment is wrong. I asked "So if somebody murdered your entire family, you wouldn't even want them locked up?" "No, I would want to help them, because they obviously are not well." "But what about the other people he could kill. Putting him in jail would prevent that" "So we should sacrifice his freedom for the supposed safety of some hypothetical person? That's not justice"
As for your first comment, there was fraud involved. Above and beyond the forged headers, they were selling $39.95 "FedEx Refund Processors". "Make $75 an hour working from home" and all that. That is why his lawyer made the comment about how it was the victims fault for being greedy.
In Canada, we pay taxes on blank tapes and CDs, and now minidiscs and MP3 players. In exchange, we can make personal copies onto these media. However, AFAIK, it does not cover downloads. So your $35 tax was to allow you to copy music from your CD's and put them on your iPod, or even borrow somebody else's CD and do the same, or take one out of the library, but NOT download them from the internet. But what is the difference between downloading it from somebody, and borring their CD? For one, you didn't pay a tax on your computer HD. Therefore, you can't copy music to it using this law. Now, I would imagine it is OK if you copy to your iPod and then delete, but it definitly isn't allowed if you don't delete it after.(Again, AFAIK, I havn't been keeping up)
However, there was a landmark case, in which the judge ruled that it is the downloading that is illegal, NOT the sharing. His reasoning was if there is a photocopier in a library, and somebody uses it to make a full copy of a book (Not allowed) instead of a few pages (Allowed as fair use) the person using the tool is at fault, not the person who made the tool available. Thus, by this precadent, people are protected from RIAA style suits, since sharing even huge numbers of songs is legal in Canada.
You are roughly correct as to what the UCC is, but not that it is a violation of it. It is for returns on an item that "is not suitable for its intended purpose". It is not for items that the customer changed their mind and doesn't want anymore, it is not for items that the customer realizes they already own one of. It is for items that don't do what they say they do, whether due to misleading advertising, or damage or defect. So, the store must accept returns if the item says it has a feature, but it doesn't. (Anything an item's package claims it can do is obviously an intended purpose). It must also accept returns on any item demaged or defective in such a way as to render the item non-functional. For example, a TV with a smashed in tube must be accepted for return. However, if the case is cracked, but the TV still works, they do not have to accept the return, as the item is still fit for its intended purpose. But if you found it cheaper somewhere else, or you realized you already bought one yesterday, then its completely up to the store, they don't have to take it back if they don't want to.
And no, you can't say "But the intent of the purchace was to have a NEW sweater, not the same one again!" Because the law ISN'T about "Intended purpose for purchace," as you have written. Intended purpose means whether or not the item can do what it is intended for. A sweater is for wearing, not for being stylish and unique. If you BOUGHT it to be stylish and unique, and it isn't, that's tough luck for you, its intended purpose is to be worn, and it still can be.
In that case, Good News Bersl2! Manditory Governmental Mental Health Screening is here! Well, they are trying it out on children first. And pregenant women, too. As of 2005, all schools must hold regular screening for mental ilness in all of their students, and all pregenant women must also report for montly mental screening, during their entire pregenancy, and for 1 year after. You see, according to the "New Freedom Commission" mental problems are rampant in the "comsumers of all demographics", and often go undiagnosed. Therefore, they recommend that "consumers of all ages" be screened for mental illness regularly, starting at age 0! That's right, newborns must be screened, too!
Yearly screening for all school chidren is nearly here. Some people voted against it, saying its already a problem that children are diagnosed with diseases and given psychotropics for "normal childhood rambunciousness", and their parents arrested for NOT given them the drugs, and this screening will only result in an even larger percentage of the population being on mind altering drugs their entire life, when there is not a thing wrong with them. The vote was 94 Republicans and 1 single Democrat, against 118 Republicans, 196 Democrats, and 1 Independent, not enough to stop this ammendment to a bill that is otherwise all about Appropriations. Therefore, to stop the bill now, the only choice is to cut funding for schools and other programs!
And this is just the first step. As I said earlier, their ultimate goal is to screen "consumers of all ages." Just like Soviet Russia did, in fact. No need to adress critisizms from people who are then diagnosed with paranoid schitzophrenia, or dementia, right? And they cannot defend themselves against the charges, because they are not accused of any crime, they are just sick and need help.
Not quite. The Aspriin was lost in the USA, true. However, Thermos was not. Another one that is incorrectly thought to have been lost is Kleenex. Others that are still valid, despite being used as a generic term by most peopleXerox, Dumpster, Coke, Band-Aid, Jeep, Rollerblade, and Speedo. Why are they still valid? Because to lose it, another company has to use it to describe their product, and you have to let them.
In other words, it doesn't matter how many guys on the street, or TV characters, or whatever, call a waste bin a "Dumpster", they can keep their trademark. However, if another company sells a "Dumpster" the company holding the trademark either must sue, or give up the trademark.
The debates, although an important factor, are not the ONLY factor in determining the president. If you don't think candidates should be allowed to use anything private...well...no TV ads, no radio ads, newspaper, internet, nothing. You would never hear anything about any politicians, because all TV news is done by private corporations. Do you really think that _private_ TV stations should be FORCED to run free ads for all presidential candidates, just because they chose to donate some free ads to their favorite one?
But your assertion that a private corporation is in charge of who becomes the next president isn't far off (Although that has nothing to do with the debates) This election, votes will be counted by private corporations only. No public officials or conserned citizens will be allowed to observe the counting, nor will they be allowed to count for themselves, as the method of counting is private and propritary (And there is nothing to count, anyways). As Stalin once said "He who votes, controlls nothing. He who counts the votes, controlls everything."
Hmmm, interesting point, but lets imagine similar law about something else instead. Lets chose, say, rape. Now, lets say this law clearly defines what rape is: Sexual intercourse without permission (For the purpose of the analogy, lets ignore details such as intoxication, age, etc.) Well oh noes, thats a terrible law! Because this law prevents fantasizing, because you seldom ask for permission before that! I know it clearly says "sexual intercourse" but who cares about precise definitions and legality, a fantasy is kinda like the real thing, so legally they are indistingishable! They will use the patriot act to find out who has rented porno, and arrest everybody for rape! (Although some may try to argue that the situations involved in these videos invites mind-rape, we all know that "She was asking for it" is a completely unacceptable excuse, so the "implicit contract" defense will likely not hold)
My point? Town hall, auditoriums, school gyms, your pants, a hippo skull, the pope, Jupiter...none of these things are movie theaters. Any similarities (A big room where things are seen and heard) are insufficient. For the law to apply, it must actually BE a movie theater.
So what? NATO troops use Geneva banned weapons all the time. "Yes, this sniper rifle has been declared illegal for use against troops. But we don't aim at troops, we aim at their uniform. Any collateral damage as a result of our attacks on an inanimate object is regrettable, but unavoidable"
True. Unless, of course, the unwelcome contact is warranted. For example, I doubt a phone company will leave you alone if you tell them that their bill was an unwelcome form of contact, and to please stop sending them...
- It costs $30 US / month to play, PLUS any fees for games you want to play on it.
-
Multiplayer, if present, is online only, unlike other consoles, which allow you to play with friends
- It has no "killer app" games, it only runs PC games...
- ...but not PC games you already own. Oh no, you need to buy them again
-
Although it is a PC, you cannot upgrade it. (Although this is true of any console, such as X-Box, you will continue to get games tweaked for the console. Not so here, new games for the phantom will continue to have higher and higher requirements, and will not be optimized)
-
You don't install the games, they all stream from the IL server
-
Even if your games are cached, you still need to authenticate with the IL server
-
If your internet connection goes down, you cannot play games.
-
Regardless of their claims, I don't see how they can possible stream such large games in the background as you play them. As Tom's Hardware pointed out, most games have all of their music and such in one big file, and it is quite difficult to only select the stuff you need for the current level
Want a good point? If you can hack the DRM, you can get a pretty sweet Linux box for $199. Athlon XP 2500+, 256 MB DDR RAM, GeForce 5700 PRO, 40 gb HD. But even if they sell millions as a result of this, it will still go bad, because I bet they are eating a loss and hoping to make it back on subscriptions (And so will probably be quick to DMCA any hint of hacking it)But not ! or ?. Those only go inside if it was part of the quote.
That is a statement. Somebody asked "What?". That is a question. You are saking if he said "Yes"For example
Also, you are adding punctuation that wasn't in the quote? If the quote was a sentance that ended with a period, then you have added nothing. If your quote was not the whole sentance, then you NEED ... at the end, instead. If you are throwing a complete quote in the middle of a sentance, the only change you make is the period to a comma.
You forgot the other difference. Bush says the US is in Iraq forever, and Kerry says that maybe they'll pull out in 4 years...as long as you elect him for his second term, they are as good as gone.
No, the major issue is that some vets paid by Bush say Kerry didn't earn all his medals. And some other people say Bush lost his wings for refusing a drug test, and then deserted his unit in wartime. So really, the entire election is about the Vietnam war.
You're right about the "Big Government Liberals" too ;)
Here is a telling little graph of the federal deficit. Feel free to check the numbers yourself at the Treasury Department (These numbers seem higher than the reported deficit. This is because they are calculated by subtracting the national debt from one year to the next. Clearly, if you used to owe 5$, and now owe $10, you must have borrowed another $5, and therefore, had a REAL deficit of $5, including interest on your current debts, of course)
At first I wanted to diagree, as the article says it is a patent on hashing files on peer to peer networks. However, Halo1 was kind enough to track down the patent in question and it shows that the patent, is, in fact, on hashing in general. In fact, it would most likely apply to a simple hash table. They basically define the concept of the function being deterministic, and collision resistant, but in lawyer speak.
The run down on what they are patenting is, creating a unique identifier for any file, that is signifigantly smaller than the file, and where there is low probability of being able to find a collision. This identifier is only based on the data, not the file name or creation date. And it can be used to determine if one has the file, simply by comparing it to a list of known identifiers. Sounds an awful lot like a general description of any hashing scheme.
However, the good news is that was filed in October 1997. I'm pretty sure that somebody thought of using hashes to keep track of files, whther over a network or locally, well before 1997.
Of course, many of these silly patent problems would be no problem to beat in court. However, the system doesn't work that way, and these people could make a lot of money by settling with people who can't afford a lawyer. The good news is they went after the RIAA, who has lots of money and lawyers. Expect a quick defeat and patent invalidation.
Or, say I read 10 studies on how many shooting deaths there are in a year in various nations. For Japan, Germany, Canada, Australia, the UK, etc. I chose the lowest number out of all 10, and for the USA, I chose the highest number. All the numbers are "Facts" but its ethically wrong to pick and chose different studies. Clearly, there is no reason to do this other than deception. The numbers were striking even WITHOUT having to do that...I don't understand why he had to deceive to make his point even more shocking...
Well, because people acting on his behalf DID commit the crimes. This person, on the other hand, did not tell anybody to break any laws.
If you say he should be extradited, then the Slashdot editors should be extradited to China. After all, they have published a number of unflattering articles about the Chinese government, and their censorship. Since it was available online, it just may be available in China (Firewall notwithstanding) thus, they are clearly breaking Chinese law, and should be subject to its laws. Or a porn website? Should be extradited to Iran or some other fundamentalist theocracy. Do you get the picture?
Fine, I don't think they are extradition countries, but its still a valid point. But how about some nations that ARE signatories? Neo-nazi's should be extradited to France to face hate speech charges. People with violent Flash/Java games on their website should be extradited to Germany for distrubuting violent video games to the German people.
Well then, lets even keep it within the USA:
Amazon.com should be fined by the Municipality of Memphis, for making Yo-Yo's and teddy bears available for sale on Sundays! (See here for this stupid law, and many others)
Not quite true. Harold Warp did invent Flex-O-Glass, and there is a Harold Warp Memorial Drive. But his last name is a coincidence. Warp has meant to twist or bend something for hundreds of years. It originates from the old english word "weorpan". In 1346 it was used as a weaving term. (When weaving, you start with lengthwise threads, the "Warp" and weave the "Woof" perpendicularly across it). In 1440 the word Warp was first recorded as meaning to twist out of shape.
This is not the only coincidental last name. I'm sure many are familar with the inventor of the ball and suction device, still used in toilets today. His name was Thomas Crapper, but "crap", meaning defication, had been slang for at least 50 years before he invented the toilet. And it has meant general refuse for a great deal longer than that. The sirname Crapper originats in the 13th century, and is a variation of "Cropper", an occupation sirname, like Cartwright, Smith, and so on.
Earlier than that. Rise of the Triad allowed voice communication, and it came out in December of 1994.
You're making the same assumption that some other people posting today have: That the people paying to have a competitor "advertised" with spam are the same people who pay to to have their OWN website advertised. Why would they be? Sure, some small beans 0rg4nic V1agr4 website may not really have any competitors they care enough about to eliminate. But what about big companies? What is to stop them from hiring a third party to do just this? Just as an example, why couldn't Microsoft hire somebody to spamvertise Redhat? If they hire some Russian to use some zombies to send it, how could it be traced back to Microsoft? How could Redhat prove they didn't hire the Russian themselves? They can't, short of arresting him and seizing his records...assuming they could even trace the zombies back to him in the first place.
Very true, but it is pretty useless to the average home user. It would have been better to disable by default it in XP Home, at the least. If you're one of the few home users who uses it for something useful, you probably know how to turn it on :)
A resturaunt likewise does not charge you for entering. If they don't offer what they advertised, you are free to stand up and leave. Additionally, in Europe, many ISPs charge by the bit, and for dial up, the telephone company charges by the minute for local calls. So viewing the website DOES cost you something.
Kudos to the MPAA? The MPAA and the NFL fought this, and are not at all happy with it. It's in the article, AND the blurb at the top.