So now the most popular movie in Japan is being released as an America-encoded DVD, with a Japanese soundtrack. So the only thing stopping millions of anxious Japanese customers from watching their favorite movie is the DVD region-encoding byte. A number. hmmmm.
How much is a pre-respun Apex 600A dvd player worth on ebay now? 5 million yen? Ten?
This press release was written in a hurry. Read this part:
It's also the first computer to come standard with an optical mouse, for perfect precision on almost any surface. And it connects to your choice of Apple's flat-screen or CRT displays in equally stunning designs.
The G4 Cube is also the first computer to come standard with the Apple Pro Mouse, for perfect precision on almost any surface
This is completely undedited by me, as posted on their page. They repeat themselves. I hereby moderate this press release to (-1 Redundant).
yet they feel quite happy to hurl sexist abuse at this poor girl.
Lita, no one is being sexist towards Patricia. Rather they have figured out that patricia, whose initals are PMS, is someone's idea of a joke. She is not a 16 year old girl driving a pickup truck and talking on her cellphone, who in her spare time installs debian linux. "She" is someone who messes with linux, reads slashdot a lot, and has decided to come up with a character to annoy people with. No, I am not a sexist who thinks that girls can't hack. Rather there are some (painfully obvious) clues in "her" argument. Take the following quote by "her":
Besides, why worry yourselves with this POTENTIAL radiation damage and POSSIBLE side effects? You're forgetting how advanced and quickly moving our technology is anyway.
No one actually thinks this way, it is a charicature of what we'd like to think the average "stupid american" thinks.
And even if some minor radiation issue is discovered, I am fully confident that businesses will honestly address it and that medical science will immedietally find a cure for any illnesses or symptoms caused by cel phone usage.
This mix of intelligent word use, perfect sentence structure, and totally unbelieveable faith in corporate america to find a cure for cancer is an attempt to create a stereotype character to piss people off. Whoever is writing for patricia is extremely intelligent and has probably fooled a lot of people, including yourself. If patricia really didn't care about potential radiation and side affects, she wouldn't go to so much detail to spell out the threat and then find a stupid way to ignore it. She'd just say "who cares about all that stuff anyway".
Don't feel bad - but be careful being self-righteous.
Patricia- hats off, and keep up the good work. slashdot needs more people with your sense of scale.
i just added their IP address range as a DROP rule to my company's ipchains configuration. we can no longer view their web page, and they can no longer ping or traceroute us. we will appear dead to them.
i encourage the rest of you to do the same until we know what happens to this information. remember, the human genome is patented (by the company across the street from me, celera!) so i'm pretty sure the "web genome" or "web topology" could be patented too... think about it...
10) easier to type "hunt-and-peckers unite!" 9) "i'm not flicking you off, i'm practicing typing on the ceiling". 8) if you get carpel tunnel in one finger, just switch fingers. 7) you can finger your computer in public without getting stared at. 6) don't have to worry about losing your career skills if you get your hand caught in the ceiling fan. 5)linux users can now finger() someone with a finger. 4) you can use two fingers to hold a donut and one to type 3) that leaves one finger left over for picking your nose 2) two words: pinky envy.
and the #1 reason to use a one-finger keyboard:
1) sometimes, there's just not enough room for two fingers.
2) how many of you had computer classes in school that consisted of playing "oregon trail"? Never even heard of it. Probably after my time.
well, i was 10 years old 14 years ago, when oregon trail was educational software for the apple ][. that was about 1986.
Donated equipment is great. If you can get the administration to let them use it, the kids love it.
that, in a nutshell, is what i was trying delicately to point out. they are continually lobbying for, as you say, "grants for hundreds of windows pcs" - which is the last thing in the world the kids need. the problem with "computers in the classroom" is the educational administration (not the teachers) aren't making good decisions - they're putting the wrong computers in the wrong classrooms, and kids aren't learning from them. the administration is making destructive decisions instead.
give them a room full of apple ]['s and some "BASIC" tutorial manuals. let the ones who want to learn, learn. i taught myself from a book. there are others like me.
I'm not sure, but I don't think that the reason for putting computers into schools is supposed to be to teach kids how to use computers. I think a lot of people learned to program mostly because there wasn't much else to do with computers back in the day. Ostensibly, computers are in the classroom to help teach traditional school subjects. When teaching traditional subjects, the whiz-bang factor actually counts (as far as keeping the kid's attention), and the extra processor power of modern computers can pay off.
i respectfully disagree with you, as do the people in the linked article. your thinking, that "whiz-bang factor" and "processing power" can cram the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic into the heads of children faster - is in my opinion unfounded.
i think the "whiz-bang factor" is distracting. i think appleworks is good enough for typing up reports. i don't think kids will learn to read faster if they have a paperclip to hold their hand. i think they learn best from good teachers, and that educational software is a very poor substitute.
but that's just my opinion, and i could be wrong.
try to teach your third-grader to spell with your windows computer. have fun! (make sure they don't find spellcheck).
Dude, that game changed my life. One summer my family drove out to Oregon with nothing but the clothes on our backs, a shotgun, 1000 bullets, and a cooler that could hold 2000 pounds of freshly shot bison.
ya dude, it's all about the bison. nail those puppies! the best part is they were rendered using microsoft TrueType sub-pixel rendering... 15 years ago!
I can answer that! I learned to program using an Apple ][+ and Applesoft BASIC. From what I've seen, kids who learned to code with today's wonderful modern tools have little advantage over those of us that learned in the dark ages.
so did i. that was the point of my post - if they REALLY want to teach computer skills, they can get the computers for free. apple was a wonderful educational platform, and i have yet to see something i can reccomend as better. it was a wonderful way for me to learn, and it's sad today's kids won't have that chance.
but they will have an animated fucking paperclip. hurray for progress.
for years, we've been told that the "computer gap" or "technology gap" between underpriveleged students and white, middle-class students is going to leave the poor out of the lucrative technology jobs. the solution is to get modern computers into schools, and to allocate massive federal funds to implement the solution.
right?
some questions for the slashdot audience:
1) which would you teach programming to a middle school student with: a) an apple II with logo and BASIC. b) a pentium III running Microsoft Visual Studio.
2) how many of you had computer classes in school that consisted of playing "oregon trail"?
3) do you think that computers in classrooms are being used to teach computer skills, or as glorified slide projectors?
4) how much does it cost to get large coporations to donate their old XT's and apples to your school? (hint: they're dying to use this as a tax writeoff).
5) do you need a pentium III to teach assembly to a child? will an XT do? might an old XT or an apple be better?
when i was 14 i designed a robot that would sweep a photocell across my room, detect intruders, and alert me via a modem. when i was 16 i used the same system to control an optical fiber-measuring test gear for a science fair. it was an apple II. i haven't seem a more accessible computer since.
-food for thought, and my 2c.
"The Internet," Roszak recently told The Dallas Morning News, "offers electronic graffiti. The idea that they should be swimming in a sea of information is idiotic. The essence of thinking is mastering ideas."
well i'm all for keeping 10-year-old third graders off of slashdot. we've got too many 30-year-old third graders already.
I heard rumors on some fan site that the Empire is going to use bounty hunters to freeze Queen Amadalia the same way that Vader froze Hans Solo in Empire. Is the script released?
Is this true?
because if so PETRIFIED NATALIE PORTMAN! OH YAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Out of the eight replies I got to this I decided out some masochistic urge I don't want to admit to answer to this one.
huh?
Linux has made its way into the mail server and web server markets that Microsoft by its high liscensing fees have abandoned. We are slowly surrounded the Microsoft bear and eventually could dominate the server rooms in a way that will make Mickeysoft's Neanderthal Technology a thing of the past. However, I hope that the effort is not hampered by the insistence that Linux become an end-user product. I think it is nice that Linux has become so easy for the geekish population to use.
well, linux domination aside, i really don't disagree with anything in your reply. my point was that oracle has an existing, legal, and profitable business, and they're facing the prospect of being obliterated by illegal (monopoly) means. they've seen most people in the industry obliterated by the microsoft monopoly. it's about corporate survival. they don't have time to slowly embrace and strangle microsoft, they're a high profile target. if microsoft can effectively use it's OS monopoly to oust oracle with MS SQL, they're instantly fucked.
the only reason this hasn't happened is that unlike quality leaders borland and qualcomm (crushed by inferior products), being a quality leader in databases really matters. banks and fortune 500 business get very touchy when it comes to data survival and mickey-mouse microsoft bullshit (oh we're sorry, that won't work unless you upgrade) won't fly with them. that's the only reason oracle is still around.
and they know it. if microsoft can ever approach their product with real quality, they can leverage their monopoly and oracle is finished. therefore i would not be surprised if oracle takes a survive-by-any-means-necessary approach to combatting microsoft - microsoft plays outside the law, therefore so must they.
"Yahoo! has an article from ZDNet News that details how Compaq and Dell are shying away from Crusoe notebooks "for now".
"We just can't afford to anger our pimp." Said Dell's spokesperson. "Microsoft has always been good to us, and he doesn't like that ho Linus!"
"When I can give the customer full-size notebook performance," said Kyle Ranson, vice president and general manager of Compaq's Transactional Business Segment.
Kyle emphasized the importance of full-size notebook performance, noting that most customers expected a high framerate from their toy paperclip, and the ability to fry eggs on their CPU for all 45 minutes of battery life. When asked if he had considered the needs (and lower cpu requirements) of Linux users, Ranson responded:
"We're going to be taking care of those people shortly. Er... I mean... I'm not sure that Linux will be favorably recieved by Microsoft.Net."
Oracle makes a good database product and that is where it should end.
Right. Resistance is futile, right? If Microsoft wants to crush you they will, so why even try to defend yourself?
On the other hand, maybe Microsoft is a direct competitor to Oracle that has an Operating System monopoly to leverage against Oracle. Considering how many companies lost their shirts to this leverage - the entire C++ compiler industry (borland), the web browser industry (netscape), the email industry (remember eudora?) - I consider this less than due dilligence on their part. If I were Oracle I'd be busy planting moles in redmond and lobbying for stronger anti-trust regulation.
So your argument is -- you have no argument, other than [argument]
correct. i have no argument other than my argument.
disagreeing with your silly argument that lack of funding excuses the USPTOs excesses and incompetence.
so now i have an argument? i'm sorry that you feel that my argument is silly. however, you have incorrectly summed it up. i did not argue that their behavior was excused by their funding situation, rather i believe it can be explained by their funding situation. the difference is that while i still think they're destructive, at the very least i have a theory as to why.
i.e. poverty doesn't excuse crime, but it often explains it.
Every grammatical flame, however subtle, contains its own grammatical errors, as you so aptly demonstrate
i did not create a grammatical flame. i flamed his spelling. your statement is therefore logically false. Every blanket statement beginning with the word "every", however subtle, is complete bullshit, as you so aptly demonstrate (even this one).
doesn't parallel rhetoric just annoy the hell out of you?
actually, "flaming" is probably an overly strong characterization, but what the heck, i'll throw you a bone. and a dangling participle. at this point your only recourse is to go back and spellcheck all my posts. i haven't done this, and you'll probably find something to prove your point. and i agree with your point - i have probably made a mistake or two, and people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. my point was that when someone makes a rampant pattern of mistakes, i.e. "i thinks yur nots noweing how to speek pruperly!", it makes them look illiterate, and not fit to converse with literate people.
Alas for you, most of the people reading this forum are smarter than that.
i'm not sure they're mostly smart, but i do think they're mostly independent thinkers. i'm sure they can decide whether they agree with my interpretation. at the very least, they should be aware of the funding situation and draw their own conclusions.
well, no. i do have an argument - i took issue with his characterization of it.
as far as jabbing at his spelling - yes, it's lame, and i hate to do it. i only do that when the lack of spelling or grammar is consistent throughout the post and actually interferes with the meaning or content of the post. i mean, he barely got out a single sentence without a spelling error, and a lot of his sentences lacked an object or pronoun. i did not at any point jab at his grammar. i don't really think that grammar is as important as spelling, especially on a web forum such as this, when people don't have much time to type their comments. i, for instance, ignore capitalization completely, as i use a one-handed dvorak keyboard and shifting is somewhat complicated for me (it's a long story).
so, to reiterate, not once did i attack his grammar, so your attempt to attack mine is unfounded. yes, attacking spelling is lame, but a consistent pattern of misspelling that interferes with the meaning of an argument is a signifigant detractor from that argument.
and yes, i do have an argument, my argument is that the corruption in the patent office stems from deeper corruption - namely, the corruption of the people who fund and appoint employees to the uspto. he simply summarized my argument incorrectly.
The argument that the poor, overworked and largely incompentent staff of the patent office is underpaid and that the office is woefully underfunded and should therefor be forgiven for its gross negligence and incompentence is, indeed, hogwash.
no shit. i didn't make that argument. my argument was that the uspto is staffed by appointees, and that change comes from the administration. lack of funding is a tool that the administration uses to exert power.
Destorting markets, hampering industried, and destroying small competative businesses by handing out government mandated and enforced monopolies willy nilly the way it is doing right now is immoral, unethical, reprehensible, and destructive.
sing it brother. i buy that with 2 clicks! (i'd buy it with one but i can't).
. Of course, whoever is president and whichever party is percieved at being in poewr at the time will take the blame, not the patent office, so maybe they (correctly) feel they do not have to care.
i think you may have this situation ass-backwards. but that's just my opinion.
I have to admit I'm confused by your reply to my post. Your subject reads "horsecrap", which means you think that something i've said is, well, less than accurate - and then you go on to agree with me, on almost everything. perhaps i should clarify my viewpoint?
Seems to me that the proper reaction to the ability to enfore a law ought not be to stop enforcing it.
the proper reaction to "the ability to enforce a law" (um, which law) shouldn't be terminating enforcement... i don't understand this sentence at all. we shouldn't stop enforcing a law because of the ability to enforce it? whose ability? what is the ability doing? what law?
If they willy-nilly grant patents and extend the intentions of patent law (see granting patants on business models) they have little right to complain about workload.
why? seems to me if you're overworked and you're doing a shitty job, it's reasonable to think that the two might be related.
If they stop revieing patents methodically as they have then you wind up in a mess because everone is suing claiming patent infringment.
can you point me to the portion of my comment where i endorse the termination of "methodically reviewing patents"? i WANT them to methodically review patents. i want them to submit them to community review, so that when they say "1 click shopping" and the community says "AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH" they will say "oh. maybe not."
At least if you went the other way and only reviewed the truely novel inventions then you leave it up to indivudual inventors to protect their intellectual property instaed of lumping the responsibility on the already overburdened legal system.
that's EXACTLY what i want them to do. i want them to review what you call "truely novel" (that's a truly novel spelling, btw) patents only, that is, patents which are not obvious and for which prior art does not exist - and throw the rest out. what i'm trying to get at is that with the resources they have now, and the amount of political and financial might being exerted on them, they don't have a chance. yes, 1.2 billion a year is a lot of money. maybe. except when 30 billion dollar corporations want ONE patent to fuck over the computer industry (read: rambus).
If some idiot can look at your invention and duplicate it because it was too simple then I suggest it's too obvious to be patented.
sing it, brother!
Things like bottle openers and anything easily deducible should not be granted these rights.
word!
More broadly, the current patent system does not suit its intended purpose and is far more damaging to society than helpful
can i hear an AMEN? (you should support this with evidence though, like the oil industry burying the electric-car patents, or RAMBUS. makes a more effective argument).
In the end I do blame the patent office and its current leadership for broadening the scope of patentable IP.
the patent office employees are APPOINTED by the ADMINISTRATION. that was the whole point of my post. they do the will of our elected leader (bill clinton). to blame them is to blame a straw man. if they don't do as they're told, they get underfunded. if they rebel, they get fired. know your government!
The reason they didn't? It was purely for personal greed and power. there is an inherent conflict of interrest when the head of the USPTO, big business and all lawyers involved on both sides stand to profit from granting sleezy patents. Power and/or money.
DOES the head of the uspto stand to profit from a corrupt patent system? or does he stand to keep his job, while someone in the adminstration (or political machine that elected it) stands to make money? consider the florida tobbacco settlement: $0 to smokers, $75million apiece to hillary clinton and trent lott's brother, respectively. a bipartisan takedown.
i agree with you, it's all about the benjamins. i just think that you might want to make sure you point your finger at the head of the beast and not the tail. don't missunderstand me.
Instead of having a bake sale to buy lunch, why not just eat the baked goods instead?
i thought of that when i posted it, but i left it because i was in a hurry and i couldn't think of anything better. all the moderation gets done in the first 5 minutes, and i'm a karma whore!
j/k. actually i just wanted my voice to be heard, like everybody else.
Slashdot Mirror
So now the most popular movie in Japan is being released as an America-encoded DVD, with a Japanese soundtrack. So the only thing stopping millions of anxious Japanese customers from watching their favorite movie is the DVD region-encoding byte.
A number.
hmmmm.
How much is a pre-respun Apex 600A dvd player worth on ebay now? 5 million yen? Ten?
This press release was written in a hurry. Read this part:
It's also the first computer to come standard with an optical mouse, for perfect precision on almost any surface. And it connects to your choice of Apple's flat-screen or CRT displays in equally stunning designs.
The G4 Cube is also the first computer to come standard with the Apple Pro Mouse, for perfect precision on almost any surface
This is completely undedited by me, as posted on their page. They repeat themselves. I hereby moderate this press release to (-1 Redundant).
These products are not as amusing as you think.
There ARE effective radation deflection devices sold:
http://www.goaegis.com/
The question is whether the radiation they're deflecting is actually harmful or not.
Good intentions, but, I hate to say it, Lita's a troll too.
:)
Lita Juarez --> l33t w4r3z.
Basically LWM. Been seen as a troll UID before. And, if you follow the trolls and read the last paragraph, there's a rather blatant in-joke in there.
Nice try, though.
damn! you see - they ARE very intelligent people. it doesn't make me angry that i got fooled, it makes me laugh.
oh well.
I know who mulder's replacement should be...
Natalie Portman!
what? i'm serious! i think she's way more talented.
Something to remember about video cards...
640k should be enough for anybody!
oh, wait...
GRAPHICS CARDS WITH 64 MEGABYTES OF RAM AND COOLING FANS.
try to sell THAT to someone 10 years ago. -i- wouldn't have believed it.
yet they feel quite happy to hurl sexist abuse at this poor girl.
Lita, no one is being sexist towards Patricia. Rather they have figured out that patricia, whose initals are PMS, is someone's idea of a joke. She is not a 16 year old girl driving a pickup truck and talking on her cellphone, who in her spare time installs debian linux. "She" is someone who messes with linux, reads slashdot a lot, and has decided to come up with a character to annoy people with. No, I am not a sexist who thinks that girls can't hack. Rather there are some (painfully obvious) clues in "her" argument. Take the following quote by "her":
Besides, why worry yourselves with this POTENTIAL radiation damage and POSSIBLE side effects? You're forgetting how advanced and quickly moving our technology is anyway.
No one actually thinks this way, it is a charicature of what we'd like to think the average "stupid american" thinks.
And even if some minor radiation issue is discovered, I am fully confident that businesses will honestly address it and that medical science will immedietally find a cure for any illnesses or symptoms caused by cel phone usage.
This mix of intelligent word use, perfect sentence structure, and totally unbelieveable faith in corporate america to find a cure for cancer is an attempt to create a stereotype character to piss people off. Whoever is writing for patricia is extremely intelligent and has probably fooled a lot of people, including yourself. If patricia really didn't care about potential radiation and side affects, she wouldn't go to so much detail to spell out the threat and then find a stupid way to ignore it. She'd just say "who cares about all that stuff anyway".
Don't feel bad - but be careful being self-righteous.
Patricia- hats off, and keep up the good work. slashdot needs more people with your sense of scale.
They won't be scanning EVERYONE
i just added their IP address range as a DROP rule to my company's ipchains configuration. we can no longer view their web page, and they can no longer ping or traceroute us. we will appear dead to them.
i encourage the rest of you to do the same until we know what happens to this information. remember, the human genome is patented (by the company across the street from me, celera!) so i'm pretty sure the "web genome" or "web topology" could be patented too... think about it...
top 10 advantages to a one-finger keyboard:
10) easier to type "hunt-and-peckers unite!"
9) "i'm not flicking you off, i'm practicing typing on the ceiling".
8) if you get carpel tunnel in one finger, just switch fingers.
7) you can finger your computer in public without getting stared at.
6) don't have to worry about losing your career skills if you get your hand caught in the ceiling fan.
5)linux users can now finger() someone with a finger.
4) you can use two fingers to hold a donut and one to type
3) that leaves one finger left over for picking your nose
2) two words: pinky envy.
and the #1 reason to use a one-finger keyboard:
1) sometimes, there's just not enough room for two fingers.
I really liked your reply.
2) how many of you had computer classes in school that consisted of playing "oregon trail"?
Never even heard of it. Probably after my time.
well, i was 10 years old 14 years ago, when oregon trail was educational software for the apple ][. that was about 1986.
Donated equipment is great. If you can get the administration to let them use it, the kids love it.
that, in a nutshell, is what i was trying delicately to point out. they are continually lobbying for, as you say, "grants for hundreds of windows pcs" - which is the last thing in the world the kids need. the problem with "computers in the classroom" is the educational administration (not the teachers) aren't making good decisions - they're putting the wrong computers in the wrong classrooms, and kids aren't learning from them. the administration is making destructive decisions instead.
give them a room full of apple ]['s and some "BASIC" tutorial manuals. let the ones who want to learn, learn. i taught myself from a book. there are others like me.
thanks for your reply.
-mwalker
I'm not sure, but I don't think that the reason for putting computers into schools is supposed to be to teach kids how to use computers. I think a lot of people learned to program mostly because there wasn't much else to do with computers back in the day.
Ostensibly, computers are in the classroom to help teach traditional school subjects. When teaching traditional subjects, the whiz-bang factor actually counts (as far as keeping the kid's attention), and the extra processor power of modern computers can pay off.
i respectfully disagree with you, as do the people in the linked article. your thinking, that "whiz-bang factor" and "processing power" can cram the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic into the heads of children faster - is in my opinion unfounded.
i think the "whiz-bang factor" is distracting. i think appleworks is good enough for typing up reports. i don't think kids will learn to read faster if they have a paperclip to hold their hand. i think they learn best from good teachers, and that educational software is a very poor substitute.
but that's just my opinion, and i could be wrong.
try to teach your third-grader to spell with your windows computer. have fun! (make sure they don't find spellcheck).
hhahahahahahahaha.
ahahaha.
what if there were no hypothetical questions?
anyway, thanks for actually taking my poll. from your answers, i think it's safe to say that i'm a lot like you.
Dude, that game changed my life. One summer my family drove out to Oregon with nothing but the clothes on our backs, a shotgun, 1000 bullets, and a cooler that could hold 2000 pounds of freshly shot bison.
ya dude, it's all about the bison. nail those puppies! the best part is they were rendered using microsoft TrueType sub-pixel rendering... 15 years ago!
progress rules.
I can answer that! I learned to program using an Apple ][+ and Applesoft BASIC. From what I've seen, kids who learned to code with today's wonderful modern tools have little advantage over those of us that learned in the dark ages.
so did i. that was the point of my post - if they REALLY want to teach computer skills, they can get the computers for free. apple was a wonderful educational platform, and i have yet to see something i can reccomend as better. it was a wonderful way for me to learn, and it's sad today's kids won't have that chance.
but they will have an animated fucking paperclip. hurray for progress.
right on man!
for years, we've been told that the "computer gap" or "technology gap" between underpriveleged students and white, middle-class students is going to leave the poor out of the lucrative technology jobs.
the solution is to get modern computers into schools, and to allocate massive federal funds to implement the solution.
right?
some questions for the slashdot audience:
1) which would you teach programming to a middle school student with:
a) an apple II with logo and BASIC.
b) a pentium III running Microsoft Visual Studio.
2) how many of you had computer classes in school that consisted of playing "oregon trail"?
3) do you think that computers in classrooms are being used to teach computer skills, or as glorified slide projectors?
4) how much does it cost to get large coporations to donate their old XT's and apples to your school? (hint: they're dying to use this as a tax writeoff).
5) do you need a pentium III to teach assembly to a child? will an XT do? might an old XT or an apple be better?
when i was 14 i designed a robot that would sweep a photocell across my room, detect intruders, and alert me via a modem. when i was 16 i used the same system to control an optical fiber-measuring test gear for a science fair. it was an apple II. i haven't seem a more accessible computer since.
-food for thought, and my 2c.
"The Internet," Roszak recently told The Dallas Morning News, "offers electronic graffiti. The idea that they should be swimming in a sea of information is idiotic. The essence of thinking is mastering ideas."
well i'm all for keeping 10-year-old third graders off of slashdot. we've got too many 30-year-old third graders already.
I heard rumors on some fan site that the Empire is going to use bounty hunters to freeze Queen Amadalia the same way that Vader froze Hans Solo in Empire. Is the script released?
Is this true?
because if so PETRIFIED NATALIE PORTMAN! OH YAAAAAAAAAAAA!
-hee. sorry. begin karma burn.
Actually Dell's pimp is Intel, not Microsoft. dell has been offering Linux on their servers for a while now. Plus the Crusoe runs windows.
But just try to get an Athlon system from Dell.
i concede your point. actually, my firewall is a dell linux server! i guess i should have spelled it WinTel.
hey the post was funny and i typed it quick. who cares about facts - this is slashdot!
(-;
Out of the eight replies I got to this I decided out some masochistic urge I don't want to admit to answer to this one.
huh?
Linux has made its way into the mail server and web server markets that Microsoft by its high liscensing fees have abandoned. We are slowly surrounded the Microsoft bear and eventually could dominate the server rooms in a way that will make Mickeysoft's Neanderthal Technology a thing of the past. However, I hope that the effort is not hampered by the insistence that Linux become an end-user product. I think it is nice that Linux has become so easy for the geekish population to use.
well, linux domination aside, i really don't disagree with anything in your reply. my point was that oracle has an existing, legal, and profitable business, and they're facing the prospect of being obliterated by illegal (monopoly) means. they've seen most people in the industry obliterated by the microsoft monopoly. it's about corporate survival. they don't have time to slowly embrace and strangle microsoft, they're a high profile target. if microsoft can effectively use it's OS monopoly to oust oracle with MS SQL, they're instantly fucked.
the only reason this hasn't happened is that unlike quality leaders borland and qualcomm (crushed by inferior products), being a quality leader in databases really matters. banks and fortune 500 business get very touchy when it comes to data survival and mickey-mouse microsoft bullshit (oh we're sorry, that won't work unless you upgrade) won't fly with them. that's the only reason oracle is still around.
and they know it. if microsoft can ever approach their product with real quality, they can leverage their monopoly and oracle is finished. therefore i would not be surprised if oracle takes a survive-by-any-means-necessary approach to combatting microsoft - microsoft plays outside the law, therefore so must they.
at least, that's what i would do.
it's about survival!
"Yahoo! has an article from ZDNet News that details how Compaq and Dell are shying away from Crusoe notebooks "for now".
"We just can't afford to anger our pimp." Said Dell's spokesperson. "Microsoft has always been good to us, and he doesn't like that ho Linus!"
"When I can give the customer full-size notebook performance," said Kyle Ranson, vice president and general manager of Compaq's Transactional Business Segment.
Kyle emphasized the importance of full-size notebook performance, noting that most customers expected a high framerate from their toy paperclip, and the ability to fry eggs on their CPU for all 45 minutes of battery life. When asked if he had considered the needs (and lower cpu requirements) of Linux users, Ranson responded:
"We're going to be taking care of those people shortly. Er... I mean... I'm not sure that Linux will be favorably recieved by Microsoft.Net."
Oracle makes a good database product and that is where it should end.
Right. Resistance is futile, right? If Microsoft wants to crush you they will, so why even try to defend yourself?
On the other hand, maybe Microsoft is a direct competitor to Oracle that has an Operating System monopoly to leverage against Oracle. Considering how many companies lost their shirts to this leverage - the entire C++ compiler industry (borland), the web browser industry (netscape), the email industry (remember eudora?) - I consider this less than due dilligence on their part. If I were Oracle I'd be busy planting moles in redmond and lobbying for stronger anti-trust regulation.
but that's just me.
So your argument is -- you have no argument, other than [argument]
correct. i have no argument other than my argument.
disagreeing with your silly argument that lack of funding excuses the USPTOs excesses and incompetence.
so now i have an argument? i'm sorry that you feel that my argument is silly. however, you have incorrectly summed it up. i did not argue that their behavior was excused by their funding situation, rather i believe it can be explained by their funding situation. the difference is that while i still think they're destructive, at the very least i have a theory as to why.
i.e. poverty doesn't excuse crime, but it often explains it.
Every grammatical flame, however subtle, contains its own grammatical errors, as you so aptly demonstrate
i did not create a grammatical flame. i flamed his spelling. your statement is therefore logically false.
Every blanket statement beginning with the word "every", however subtle, is complete bullshit, as you so aptly demonstrate (even this one).
doesn't parallel rhetoric just annoy the hell out of you?
actually, "flaming" is probably an overly strong characterization, but what the heck, i'll throw you a bone. and a dangling participle. at this point your only recourse is to go back and spellcheck all my posts. i haven't done this, and you'll probably find something to prove your point. and i agree with your point - i have probably made a mistake or two, and people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. my point was that when someone makes a rampant pattern of mistakes, i.e. "i thinks yur nots noweing how to speek pruperly!", it makes them look illiterate, and not fit to converse with literate people.
Alas for you, most of the people reading this forum are smarter than that.
i'm not sure they're mostly smart, but i do think they're mostly independent thinkers. i'm sure they can decide whether they agree with my interpretation. at the very least, they should be aware of the funding situation and draw their own conclusions.
So your argument is -- you have no argument
well, no. i do have an argument - i took issue with his characterization of it.
as far as jabbing at his spelling - yes, it's lame, and i hate to do it. i only do that when the lack of spelling or grammar is consistent throughout the post and actually interferes with the meaning or content of the post. i mean, he barely got out a single sentence without a spelling error, and a lot of his sentences lacked an object or pronoun. i did not at any point jab at his grammar. i don't really think that grammar is as important as spelling, especially on a web forum such as this, when people don't have much time to type their comments. i, for instance, ignore capitalization completely, as i use a one-handed dvorak keyboard and shifting is somewhat complicated for me (it's a long story).
so, to reiterate, not once did i attack his grammar, so your attempt to attack mine is unfounded. yes, attacking spelling is lame, but a consistent pattern of misspelling that interferes with the meaning of an argument is a signifigant detractor from that argument.
and yes, i do have an argument, my argument is that the corruption in the patent office stems from deeper corruption - namely, the corruption of the people who fund and appoint employees to the uspto. he simply summarized my argument incorrectly.
as you did.
The argument that the poor, overworked and largely incompentent staff of the patent office is underpaid and that the office is woefully underfunded and should therefor be forgiven for its gross negligence and incompentence is, indeed, hogwash.
no shit. i didn't make that argument. my argument was that the uspto is staffed by appointees, and that change comes from the administration. lack of funding is a tool that the administration uses to exert power.
Destorting markets, hampering industried, and destroying small competative businesses by handing out government mandated and enforced monopolies willy nilly the way it is doing right now is immoral, unethical, reprehensible, and destructive.
sing it brother. i buy that with 2 clicks! (i'd buy it with one but i can't).
. Of course, whoever is president and whichever party is percieved at being in poewr at the time will take the blame, not the patent office, so maybe they (correctly) feel they do not have to care.
i think you may have this situation ass-backwards. but that's just my opinion.
I have to admit I'm confused by your reply to my post. Your subject reads "horsecrap", which means you think that something i've said is, well, less than accurate - and then you go on to agree with me, on almost everything. perhaps i should clarify my viewpoint?
Seems to me that the proper reaction to the ability to enfore a law ought not be to stop enforcing it.
the proper reaction to "the ability to enforce a law" (um, which law) shouldn't be terminating enforcement... i don't understand this sentence at all. we shouldn't stop enforcing a law because of the ability to enforce it? whose ability? what is the ability doing? what law?
If they willy-nilly grant patents and extend the intentions of patent law (see granting patants on business models) they have little right to complain about workload.
why? seems to me if you're overworked and you're doing a shitty job, it's reasonable to think that the two might be related.
If they stop revieing patents methodically as they have then you wind up in a mess because everone is suing claiming patent infringment.
can you point me to the portion of my comment where i endorse the termination of "methodically reviewing patents"? i WANT them to methodically review patents. i want them to submit them to community review, so that when they say "1 click shopping" and the community says "AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH" they will say "oh. maybe not."
At least if you went the other way and only reviewed the truely novel inventions then you leave it up to indivudual inventors to protect their intellectual property instaed of lumping the responsibility on the already overburdened legal system.
that's EXACTLY what i want them to do. i want them to review what you call "truely novel" (that's a truly novel spelling, btw) patents only, that is, patents which are not obvious and for which prior art does not exist - and throw the rest out. what i'm trying to get at is that with the resources they have now, and the amount of political and financial might being exerted on them, they don't have a chance. yes, 1.2 billion a year is a lot of money. maybe. except when 30 billion dollar corporations want ONE patent to fuck over the computer industry (read: rambus).
If some idiot can look at your invention and duplicate it because it was too simple then I suggest it's too obvious to be patented.
sing it, brother!
Things like bottle openers and anything easily deducible should not be granted these rights.
word!
More broadly, the current patent system does not suit its intended purpose and is far more damaging to society than helpful
can i hear an AMEN? (you should support this with evidence though, like the oil industry burying the electric-car patents, or RAMBUS. makes a more effective argument).
In the end I do blame the patent office and its current leadership for broadening the scope of patentable IP.
the patent office employees are APPOINTED by the ADMINISTRATION. that was the whole point of my post. they do the will of our elected leader (bill clinton). to blame them is to blame a straw man. if they don't do as they're told, they get underfunded. if they rebel, they get fired.
know your government!
The reason they didn't? It was purely for personal greed and power. there is an inherent conflict of interrest when the head of the USPTO, big business and all lawyers involved on both sides stand to profit from granting sleezy patents. Power and/or money.
DOES the head of the uspto stand to profit from a corrupt patent system? or does he stand to keep his job, while someone in the adminstration (or political machine that elected it) stands to make money? consider the florida tobbacco settlement: $0 to smokers, $75million apiece to hillary clinton and trent lott's brother, respectively. a bipartisan takedown.
i agree with you, it's all about the benjamins.
i just think that you might want to make sure you point your finger at the head of the beast and not the tail. don't missunderstand me.
and FUCKING LEARN TO SPELL!
please.
thanks.
Instead of having a bake sale to buy lunch, why not just eat the baked goods instead?
i thought of that when i posted it, but i left it because i was in a hurry and i couldn't think of anything better. all the moderation gets done in the first 5 minutes, and i'm a karma whore!
j/k. actually i just wanted my voice to be heard, like everybody else.