Yeah, and if he's thinking of applying Tesla's methods to avoid the whole battery thing, having a continuous "lightning bolt" streaming to a laptop in my lap isn't my idea of a good time...
I work for a court as tech support. Many, many of our judges are as described: not inclined to learn the finer details of computers, and don't have the fundamental understanding of how computers work. But they are beginning to, as spam and spyware impacts them on a personal level, an understanding is slowly coming.
I believe that the problem, as was posted earlier, is that many of the judges are far past retirement age and not willing to start learning a whole new branch of knowledge. DNA evidence has an established record of working and has precedent in court, and while new (relatively speaking) doesn't change as quickly as computer technology does. Remember, spam was a nuisance 10 years ago; now it's what, 80 some percent of our world internet traffic? Spyware didn't exist 15 years ago; now you have to watch where you click because some companies will hold your machine ransom because you thought you clicked on a free virus scan.
Additionally, DNA and forensic evidence (for instance) deals with proving someone guilty of a specific crime, it's used as evidence to support crimes such as murder, kidnapping, or rape -- a much more personal, physical set of crimes with a limited scope that the technology applies to: defendant was or wasn't at the scene of the crime. Compared to computer and technology "crimes", of which computer technology evidence introduced into court could be literally anything from network protocol analysis to hard drive sector recovery, with different applications and results to each of those, it becomes evident that there's a much wider spectrum of facts and case law that needs to be established, and to be honest, a whole new branch of education that would need to be taken on for a judge to truly understand enough of the aspects to make informed decisions.
That is why they call experts to the stand, question them on the facts, and then move on.
Our younger judges that are coming on board, however, have a much better grasp on the technology side -- at least the usage of technology -- and I think will be able to tackle these kinds of cases in the coming years with more favorable results.
However, I still have one question. Why didn't the defense team introduce more forensic evidence showing how vile and pervasive spyware and spam can be? Or was it just that the jury didn't like that she didn't keep kids away from the screen while the spyware was popping up porn?
Why would we want to only build the world's tallest build a few floors higher than the last? Why not add 100, 200 more floors?;)
Probably an exaggerated metaphor, but it's along the same idea. Limiting the transistors on a processor is not a function of desire, so much as it is a problem of heat, data access, speed, power consumption... the infrastructure that makes up the chip itself needs to be able to utilize all those transistors without generating too much heat, etc.
I have to say the Planet Earth series was an eye opener... though it was a bit pricey I found it on sale and haven't regretted that purchase. Also, as some others mentioned, the Fifth Elemenet (the Remastered edition), the Pirates of the Carribean series, and the Harry Potter movies. I'm also looking forward to some of the older, epic releases such as Lawrence of Arabia.
True, and this also only works where the ecliptic plane of the observed star system is level with that of Earth.
But I seem to recall they can now also find planetary systems around stars by observing their wobble as their planets orbit them and exert their gravitational forces on the star.
Before repeating talking points, you should probably research the issue of which you are speaking.
1. Yes, Clinton fired all of the district attorneys, which is a political position, that were in place at the beginning of his term. This is normal, as they are political appointees; think of it as more of a term limit. Bush, however, fired select DAs during the MIDDLE of his term -- not normal. The issue not that they were fired, but the reasons they were fired. The allegation is that it was because they would not selectively prosecute certain Democratic political candidates for political gain when there was little or no evidence against them, and after glowing reports of their performance up to the rejection of the cases against the politicians. By the way, if I recall correctly, Bush replaced all of these people at the beginning of his first term, just like Clinton did, with his own appointees. Every President that I can remember does as a matter of course.
2. The article isn't talking about these positions in the first place. These criteria were used to screen applicants that were NOT political positions, ones that aren't replaced every new president. This has been deemed illegal, as those positions are supposed to be non-partisian and neutral.
I'm more concerned with the illegal, warrantless wiretapping they were asked to do (and complied with) BEFORE 9/11. Without immunity, most of these companies could be compelled to testify at hearings designed to bring to light what DID happen, and WHO was wiretapped, and be granted immunity when they were cooperative.
Now, there's no reason for them to comply with anything. Bush wins again.
The thing is, if they did nothing wrong, what have they got to hide? Right? Isn't that what they always tell us about the wiretapping? We don't even KNOW what they did that we are granting them immunity of -- but wow, are they spending billions to "convince" our legislators that there's "Nothing to see here, move along..."
They seem pretty desperate to make sure that nothing they did will even come to light.
Not sure if I'm missing a joke in that your post is modded funny, but I think he was talking about perceived time from the reference of the photon. As they travel the speed of light, time dilation should slow down perceived time infinitely, if my memory of physics serves me.
I'm not an astrophysicist, but I'm guessing that due to analysing the light received from those distant objects, and calculating using redshift, they can determine (or rather, make a very educated calculation) the average age of the materials that make up the galaxy.
How about wiretapping without a warrant?
Or we could work with Cheney's record, very simply -- fixing prices on oil and energy, and refusing to turn over documents to prove otherwise, even to a secret court?
How about keeping correspondence on unofficial RNC servers rather than official government ones, where they can be archived as is the law?
Perhaps throw in a bit of international anti-torture/anti-rendition law, since legal treaties entered into by the United States are constitutionally defined as U.S. law?
That's just what immediately came to my head, verifiable evidence that they have directly broken the law.
Funny, I thought the same thing.
Also, I don't remember seeing many boards with 8 RAM SIMM slots back then... or any 8 MB sticks... Ahh well, that's what schizophrenia is for.
But until you see the patent at issue, how do you know whether it is invalid or not, without even reading it? I guess what I don't understand is the rush to label anyone who sues as a "patent troll" without understanding the patent or the law..
True, I wasn't defending the OP but defining the statement. However, this company has made a history of doing these practices and while generalizations aren't always true, they do generally have a nugget of truth in there.
Also, regarding the waiting to sue issue - there are equitable doctrines known as "laches" and "estoppel" for these situations. If the court finds that they are engaging in this type of activity, relief can be denied.
Also true, however, this doesn't preclude the company filing for relief being a troll in the first place -- perhaps knowingly filing a fraudulent claim and hoping that the company can either be forced to settle for cheaper than lawyer fees or perhaps win on a technicality. Regardless of whether relief is granted or not, there have been some small-time inventors that have unknowingly tread on an idea that's somewhat similar to a patent held by someone else, and been ruined once the company currently holding the IP comes knockin'.
So the problem with "patent trolls" is that they paid too little for the assignment?
Well, this isn't quite what I meant -- though your point about it being more of a contract issue is valid. I was thinking more along the lines of the small inventor, who can be coerced into selling off the patents to a holding company like this one for far under what they might be worth, and then the company hiding those patents away with no intention of using them or developing product, then waiting to actively ruin products that come out of other inventors, if they think they can squeeze money from them. If they can't, they'll wait until the product becomes big before suing, rather than immediately coming forward and saying that their patent might be violated and working with the inventor or company to come to a mutually-beneficial deal. See RIM's recent patent fiasco over the Blackberry.
My worry is that these IP holding companies that don't have any intention of developing products on the patents that they hold are stifling innovation. It's not that they don't have enough money to start production of some of the patents that they have, it's that they would rather wait like a trapdoor spider for another poor sucker/inventor to come along, and then bleed them for all they are worth, then wait for the next. It's not as though the company will develop their own version of the product after gaining "relief" -- I'm not aware of it happening a single time.
Essentially, as used in this article, a "patent troll" is a company that does nothing but holds patents, but also goes above and beyond that by registering patents with very little technical background or a very general idea, sits on them for a few years, and then sues the pants off of anyone who uses that idea or technology AFTER said "patent infringer" has invested millions in the infrastructure and has become completely dependent on whatever the patent covers.
"Patent trolls" will also buy patents off of others for a pittance and then sue alleged violators.
The example you used is a legitimate use of the patent laws.
So, let's see. When Sony thinks that someone has "pirated" music, they sue them for, what, $1,500 per song, yet illegally invade people's computers and privacy and get off with a hundred dollars or so per person?
Of course, the cartridges will not be refillable, just like their ink cartridges -- and they'll be coded with special chips that can't be modified, will tell you that you have no "fuel" left when you have a half-full cartridge, and uses.5% of the cartridges' power every boot-up to go through an "initialization" cycle.
It's the same as their current strategy of selling ink for $10,000 a liter.
If they're REALLY good, they'll make the screen that transfers the energy clog irrecoverably from time to time so they can sell you special "cleaning cartridges" (only available to dealers) or the consumer has to replace the whole printer.
Well, one of the things the review DIDN'T mention is that the netcode is terrible. You can't just connect to a friend's machine over the internet anymore (LAN you can, though), you are FORCED to "meet up" in the Gamespy/close variant chatrooms.
The problems arise, however, that at least with Linksys routers, the stupid game inserts a forwarding rule through uPNP that makes no sense. MS refuses to acknowledge the problem, but when you try to start the game and the rule is there, all you get is a black screen on ANY multiplayer DS2 game (even local). If you go in and delete this rule and restart DS2 (there's no way to cancel the "load" that is frozen) it works fine.
Turning off uPNP helps, but it took me 3 days to find this solution on some random forum.
Even now, weeks later, there's nothing in the DS2 "knowledge base" about this problem, or the infrequent crashes to desktop that occur.
I'm still waiting on a return email from M$ on this problem. Their "24 hour response turnaround" is at about 2 weeks now.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, and if he's thinking of applying Tesla's methods to avoid the whole battery thing, having a continuous "lightning bolt" streaming to a laptop in my lap isn't my idea of a good time...
I work for a court as tech support. Many, many of our judges are as described: not inclined to learn the finer details of computers, and don't have the fundamental understanding of how computers work. But they are beginning to, as spam and spyware impacts them on a personal level, an understanding is slowly coming.
I believe that the problem, as was posted earlier, is that many of the judges are far past retirement age and not willing to start learning a whole new branch of knowledge. DNA evidence has an established record of working and has precedent in court, and while new (relatively speaking) doesn't change as quickly as computer technology does. Remember, spam was a nuisance 10 years ago; now it's what, 80 some percent of our world internet traffic? Spyware didn't exist 15 years ago; now you have to watch where you click because some companies will hold your machine ransom because you thought you clicked on a free virus scan.
Additionally, DNA and forensic evidence (for instance) deals with proving someone guilty of a specific crime, it's used as evidence to support crimes such as murder, kidnapping, or rape -- a much more personal, physical set of crimes with a limited scope that the technology applies to: defendant was or wasn't at the scene of the crime. Compared to computer and technology "crimes", of which computer technology evidence introduced into court could be literally anything from network protocol analysis to hard drive sector recovery, with different applications and results to each of those, it becomes evident that there's a much wider spectrum of facts and case law that needs to be established, and to be honest, a whole new branch of education that would need to be taken on for a judge to truly understand enough of the aspects to make informed decisions.
That is why they call experts to the stand, question them on the facts, and then move on.
Our younger judges that are coming on board, however, have a much better grasp on the technology side -- at least the usage of technology -- and I think will be able to tackle these kinds of cases in the coming years with more favorable results.
However, I still have one question. Why didn't the defense team introduce more forensic evidence showing how vile and pervasive spyware and spam can be? Or was it just that the jury didn't like that she didn't keep kids away from the screen while the spyware was popping up porn?
Why would we want to only build the world's tallest build a few floors higher than the last? Why not add 100, 200 more floors? ;)
Probably an exaggerated metaphor, but it's along the same idea. Limiting the transistors on a processor is not a function of desire, so much as it is a problem of heat, data access, speed, power consumption... the infrastructure that makes up the chip itself needs to be able to utilize all those transistors without generating too much heat, etc.
I have to say the Planet Earth series was an eye opener... though it was a bit pricey I found it on sale and haven't regretted that purchase. Also, as some others mentioned, the Fifth Elemenet (the Remastered edition), the Pirates of the Carribean series, and the Harry Potter movies. I'm also looking forward to some of the older, epic releases such as Lawrence of Arabia.
Yeah, it's unfortunate that their drivers still suck and have to be re-packaged by a hobbyist (Omega drivers, anyone?)
True, and this also only works where the ecliptic plane of the observed star system is level with that of Earth. But I seem to recall they can now also find planetary systems around stars by observing their wobble as their planets orbit them and exert their gravitational forces on the star.
Before repeating talking points, you should probably research the issue of which you are speaking.
1. Yes, Clinton fired all of the district attorneys, which is a political position, that were in place at the beginning of his term. This is normal, as they are political appointees; think of it as more of a term limit. Bush, however, fired select DAs during the MIDDLE of his term -- not normal. The issue not that they were fired, but the reasons they were fired. The allegation is that it was because they would not selectively prosecute certain Democratic political candidates for political gain when there was little or no evidence against them, and after glowing reports of their performance up to the rejection of the cases against the politicians. By the way, if I recall correctly, Bush replaced all of these people at the beginning of his first term, just like Clinton did, with his own appointees. Every President that I can remember does as a matter of course.
2. The article isn't talking about these positions in the first place. These criteria were used to screen applicants that were NOT political positions, ones that aren't replaced every new president. This has been deemed illegal, as those positions are supposed to be non-partisian and neutral.
I'm more concerned with the illegal, warrantless wiretapping they were asked to do (and complied with) BEFORE 9/11. Without immunity, most of these companies could be compelled to testify at hearings designed to bring to light what DID happen, and WHO was wiretapped, and be granted immunity when they were cooperative.
Now, there's no reason for them to comply with anything. Bush wins again.
The thing is, if they did nothing wrong, what have they got to hide? Right? Isn't that what they always tell us about the wiretapping? We don't even KNOW what they did that we are granting them immunity of -- but wow, are they spending billions to "convince" our legislators that there's "Nothing to see here, move along..."
They seem pretty desperate to make sure that nothing they did will even come to light.
Of course, if you're going to correct someone's math, it's only appropriate someone corrects your spelling of "terabyte".
The fact that this guy is still breathing kinda nullifies his point about video games making people violent, doesn't it?
Not sure if I'm missing a joke in that your post is modded funny, but I think he was talking about perceived time from the reference of the photon. As they travel the speed of light, time dilation should slow down perceived time infinitely, if my memory of physics serves me.
Subtle point, but interesting, thinking about it.
I'm not an astrophysicist, but I'm guessing that due to analysing the light received from those distant objects, and calculating using redshift, they can determine (or rather, make a very educated calculation) the average age of the materials that make up the galaxy.
Again, just a guess.
How about wiretapping without a warrant? Or we could work with Cheney's record, very simply -- fixing prices on oil and energy, and refusing to turn over documents to prove otherwise, even to a secret court? How about keeping correspondence on unofficial RNC servers rather than official government ones, where they can be archived as is the law? Perhaps throw in a bit of international anti-torture/anti-rendition law, since legal treaties entered into by the United States are constitutionally defined as U.S. law? That's just what immediately came to my head, verifiable evidence that they have directly broken the law.
Funny, I thought the same thing. Also, I don't remember seeing many boards with 8 RAM SIMM slots back then... or any 8 MB sticks... Ahh well, that's what schizophrenia is for.
Wait... Wasn't Pacman a licensed property back then?
But until you see the patent at issue, how do you know whether it is invalid or not, without even reading it?
I guess what I don't understand is the rush to label anyone who sues as a "patent troll" without understanding the patent or the law..
True, I wasn't defending the OP but defining the statement. However, this company has made a history of doing these practices and while generalizations aren't always true, they do generally have a nugget of truth in there.
Also, regarding the waiting to sue issue - there are equitable doctrines known as "laches" and "estoppel" for these situations. If the court finds that they are engaging in this type of activity, relief can be denied.
Also true, however, this doesn't preclude the company filing for relief being a troll in the first place -- perhaps knowingly filing a fraudulent claim and hoping that the company can either be forced to settle for cheaper than lawyer fees or perhaps win on a technicality. Regardless of whether relief is granted or not, there have been some small-time inventors that have unknowingly tread on an idea that's somewhat similar to a patent held by someone else, and been ruined once the company currently holding the IP comes knockin'.
So the problem with "patent trolls" is that they paid too little for the assignment?
Well, this isn't quite what I meant -- though your point about it being more of a contract issue is valid. I was thinking more along the lines of the small inventor, who can be coerced into selling off the patents to a holding company like this one for far under what they might be worth, and then the company hiding those patents away with no intention of using them or developing product, then waiting to actively ruin products that come out of other inventors, if they think they can squeeze money from them. If they can't, they'll wait until the product becomes big before suing, rather than immediately coming forward and saying that their patent might be violated and working with the inventor or company to come to a mutually-beneficial deal. See RIM's recent patent fiasco over the Blackberry.
My worry is that these IP holding companies that don't have any intention of developing products on the patents that they hold are stifling innovation. It's not that they don't have enough money to start production of some of the patents that they have, it's that they would rather wait like a trapdoor spider for another poor sucker/inventor to come along, and then bleed them for all they are worth, then wait for the next. It's not as though the company will develop their own version of the product after gaining "relief" -- I'm not aware of it happening a single time.
Essentially, as used in this article, a "patent troll" is a company that does nothing but holds patents, but also goes above and beyond that by registering patents with very little technical background or a very general idea, sits on them for a few years, and then sues the pants off of anyone who uses that idea or technology AFTER said "patent infringer" has invested millions in the infrastructure and has become completely dependent on whatever the patent covers.
"Patent trolls" will also buy patents off of others for a pittance and then sue alleged violators.
The example you used is a legitimate use of the patent laws.
Wow. The ICAMSR site's front page is so riddled with spelling errors that it's hard to take them seriously in any case.
Well, guess all those AIs in the matrix won't need us any longer. Goodbye, reality!
Just think, with one of these on every desktop, what the pr0n industry will do with 'em...
Really? You don't call my time removing this crap at $120 an hour per machine financial losses?
So, let's see. When Sony thinks that someone has "pirated" music, they sue them for, what, $1,500 per song, yet illegally invade people's computers and privacy and get off with a hundred dollars or so per person?
Where's the justice in that?
Of course, the cartridges will not be refillable, just like their ink cartridges -- and they'll be coded with special chips that can't be modified, will tell you that you have no "fuel" left when you have a half-full cartridge, and uses .5% of the cartridges' power every boot-up to go through an "initialization" cycle.
It's the same as their current strategy of selling ink for $10,000 a liter.
If they're REALLY good, they'll make the screen that transfers the energy clog irrecoverably from time to time so they can sell you special "cleaning cartridges" (only available to dealers) or the consumer has to replace the whole printer.
Just pop out the hard drive, plug it into your computer's IDE channel, and use a program like DishRip to get the files off of there.
Of course, it voids your warranty and is a pain in the ass, but there ya go.
Well, one of the things the review DIDN'T mention is that the netcode is terrible. You can't just connect to a friend's machine over the internet anymore (LAN you can, though), you are FORCED to "meet up" in the Gamespy/close variant chatrooms.
The problems arise, however, that at least with Linksys routers, the stupid game inserts a forwarding rule through uPNP that makes no sense. MS refuses to acknowledge the problem, but when you try to start the game and the rule is there, all you get is a black screen on ANY multiplayer DS2 game (even local). If you go in and delete this rule and restart DS2 (there's no way to cancel the "load" that is frozen) it works fine.
Turning off uPNP helps, but it took me 3 days to find this solution on some random forum. Even now, weeks later, there's nothing in the DS2 "knowledge base" about this problem, or the infrequent crashes to desktop that occur.
I'm still waiting on a return email from M$ on this problem. Their "24 hour response turnaround" is at about 2 weeks now.