The Supreme Court of the United States will hear a landmark patent case involving whether or not thoughts and relationships are patentable.
You'd think with all the big issues facing the country something like this wouldn't pass the laugh test. Yet it's made it all the way to the Supreme Court.
If thoughts turn out to be patentable, then I'm going to be first in line to patent any sexual or obscene thought involving a virtualization of another human being, animal or farm implement used for or engaging in sexual activity, for the purpose of self-stimulation.
Then I'm going sue every one of you wankers on/.:) It'll give whole new meaning to the phrase "penny for your thoughts".
I think it's something like 80 or 90% of the complaints the FCC receives comes from the same group of people. A relatively small group of religious fanatics trying to impose their brand of morality on TV.
It's sort of like Free Republic, the Freepers, starting out with a small group of paid posters to make themselves appear bigger than they actually were.
Working together a small group of people can make a lot of noise.
We'll finally be able to send our glorious Justice Department commandos after those insurgent little old ladies playing Texas Holdum and otherwise not bothering a sole in the privacy of their own home. Without this law we would have never been able to move against the undesirable element in our society who keep to themselves, those bastards.
Once we have the bulk of the population under the regulatory oversight of the criminal justice system we'll be able to force those godless, indecent hoardes into our nice, Republican cookie-cutter mold of outward piety and ethical lip service.
Long live the Republican party! Long live the Justice Department!
Pretty sad when newspapers in this country have to start worrying about encrypting their source data. Welcome to Republican Amerika, formerly known as the land of the free.
A supercomputer that starts designing viri in an attempt to rid the planet of humans. The virus wipes out huge numbers of people, then the survivors counter-attack and the computer keeps spinning out new viri that allow the computer to control specific behaviors in people. It's a see-saw futuristic sci-fi smack down!
You could have the surviving humans turn into creatures with hyper-reactive DNA to protect themselves against the constantly changing virus patterns. Call them muties or something. They have to constantly test one another's behaviors to make sure a new virus hasn't slipped through.
For a Linux desktop to be preferred over Windows, the Linux desktop experience will have to provide something new and innovative that Windows does not, rather than just knocking off Windows features.
It's not a matter of liking it or not, there are just facts. XP is a pretty good product, but it still takes a monthly antivirus subscription to keep it running in any kind of shape. It's not safe to surf the internet with Windows. The productivity you mentioned is evened out with the virus, trojan and spyware robbing you of up time and cpu cycles.
I don't agree that the Linux experience will have to be all that great to see big changes. MSFT is their own worst enemy. Share price is relatively stagnant and they're always looking for ways to squeeze more revenue out of their user base. Product activation, DRM, Draconian EULA's that are little better than a deal with the devil, annoying licensing restrictions and bloated product offerings. The majority of my business customers hate MSFT. Not just dislike, hate. And the more MSFT squeezes them for revenue, the lower the performance bar that Linux would have to meet to convince them to switch.
There's a perfect storm of negative potential building for MSFT. There is a large base of talented technical people who prefer Linux. Because of the open nature of the licensing, it's much easier to innovate in the OSS world. All the really cool stuff in OS development is happening in Linux. There are big IT service corporations that can support Linux implementations available, including some packaging desktop management systems. Add that to MSFT's own native greed, lack of innovation and institutional inertia and you have an economic room full of gasoline vapors. One spark could set off an explosion of transition.
I know Windows guys don't like to hear this, but going forward my money is not on MSFT or their products.
Additionally, they haven't been able to sell needed changes to senior management.
So, senior management doesn't see the value in IT investment, keeps pushing needed upgrades to the next budget cycle and that's IT's fault? WTF?
I explain it's like being a car mechanic. You can pay now for incremental improvements, or you can pay more later with a complete system upgrade. Then when their database server goes tits up because it's overloaded I can trot out the memo and ask if they remember having that conversation.
And in what context? That's a tricky question. One thing I'd say for sure is that Linux should most definitely stop trying to be a Windows replacement. Why be limited by Windows functionality and MSFT's overhead? I like Linux, and many of you here would agree, because it's not like Windows.
Linux distro developers might want to explore voluntary standards for certain types of configurations. Maybe something like configuration assumptions for desktops v servers. Like that commercial with the Easy button? Maybe we have an "easy" configuration for desktop distros that tucks more the inner workings out of sight.
But if you take away the inconsistency in the Linux environment, you may be undermining one of its most important strengths.
I can sympathize with why people don't like dealing with agents. Many of them are just trying to sell you something, they don't return phone calls half the time and sometimes you're rightly suspicious they're not telling you the whole story. But working with the worst agent in the area is better than dealing directly with the seller online. There are a whole raft of safeguards you give up without agency representation.
But at least working with an agent in most states you have specific legal protections that are lacking in online transactions. It's a lot easier to take action in most states against a crooked agent than a crooked seller. Most times they're mandated to have E&O, the real estate agent's professional liability insurance. State oversight boards are notoriously brutal and inflexible. Real estate agents had such a bad reputation that many states laid the hammer down. As a spurned buyer your chances of getting justice from the state real estate commission or the courts are extremely high if your agent might reasonably have known about a potential problem.
The buyer's agent normally gets their cut from the seller. 90% of the time it doesn't cost you anything to have an agent if you're a buyer. In some areas buyer's agents charge up front fees, so ask first.
Truthfully, even if I had to pay them out of my pocket I'd still use a real estate agent for buying property, especially if it's out of town. If something is really wrong they've got a fiduciary duty to inform you about anything material to the value of the property. If they don't they're risking their license and an E&O claim against their broker. I've found the combination of internet research and a good local agent to be the best combination for my property purchases. Trust but verify what they're telling me.
We run your financial networks, your ATM's, schools, airports and supermarkets. Every system, no matter how important or secure, has to trust someone and we're it.
Open source programmers getting paid. I thought all open source programmers were long-haired commies living in their mother's basement? Darl McBride from SCO said that, so it must be true!
If they become economically viable they might actually attract healthy, fertile females who will want to mate with them. *gasp* *horror* They'll start reproducing!!!!
It's standing in line to pay 12 bucks for a ticket, buy over-priced popcorn and watered-down drinks, then get walked over by some couple coming in late, which is right after someone 10 feet tall with a hat sits down in front of me, and the retard next to him feels like his business is so important he has to make a big show of holding up his cell phone to check his text messages every five minutes. With the couple behind talking through the whole movie which starts late because of the 15 minutes of commercials and previews before the movie, that sucks anyway, actually starts.
So, overall, Malco and the other big chains can kiss my big fat ass if they think I'm going to a theater. My house has comfortable seats, great booze, big screen picture and house-shaking sound. All for a 3 dollar Netflix rental.
I like to rip on Microsoft as much as anyone else, but holy shit welcome to the whole rest of the entire fucking industry. And the airline industry, and the financial industry
It could be significant because MSFT has been doing it while increasing their quarterly profits. When a company needs cash and stiffs their workers on salaries it's a lot more understandable than a company that still manages to increase their quarterly numbers. It would breed a lot of resentment among the rank and file.
It might really be significant if MSFT had to stiff their workers to increase quarterly numbers. Their sales are nearly pure profit, billions in cash every quarter. And they're telling their employees "No soup for you!"
Doesn't make sense. MSFT is not an airline or a smokestack industry. Their sunk costs are pretty insignificant compared to their cash profit margin. For a cash rich company this behavior is oddly out of synch with their earnings.
I think Google should hold the line and keep doing exactly what they've been doing. Focus on building long term value for the user which will build value for the company and ultimately the stockholders.
Wall St. doesn't like it, too bad. It's about time someone stood up for long term value in this country and pulled their head out of that quarterly numbers mind fuck that's all to common. I'm glad to see Google taking the lead.
Stay out of that line. Focus on value. The share price is grossly inflated right now anyway. It'll go up, it'll go down. You pays your money and takes your chances.
www.hairylobster.com is showing available. Then the hairy deap sea lobsters would be suing you for domain squatting. But you could throw them into a pot of boiling water and yell, "Ha! I win!"
And that's why I don't think the lobsters will file an appeal.
Because IBM is big? Many companies are experimenting with Linux on the desktop. Many more are starting to use Thunderbird and Firefox for email and web browsing, including some very large defense contractors that I won't name here. That makes the underlying desktop platform less important and makes the transition easier if they ever decide to switch.
I see this same trend among my own customers. There is real preperation going on for NOT moving to Vista. Some of them will probably role anyway, but lately the trend is to move business critical apps to web-based alternatives and move away from MSFT proprietary clients like Outlook and IE. Preparation that makes switching the desktop OS much easier.
I think many would merely use it for leverage to squeeze concessions out of MSFT, but based on the amount of interest and effort I'm seeing doesn't look like posing. It seems serious this time. MSFT will have to come up with better discounts. A few vouchers for training and support calls aren't going to cut it.
He's basically saying it's Linux fault they're not offering it. Here's a thought, Mikey, let users selecting Linux as their OS purchase an optional support contract. Then you can farm it out to a group that knows what they're doing and skim a cut off the top. Now you don't have to support any Linux distro and still give users a choice. If you have to put out any meager effort at all it will be getting the hardware makers to supply Linux drivers. But I'm guessing you make them do that anyway.
Your service hasn't been worth much since about 2001, so it's no big loss for the user. Then you can stop making bad excuses for not wanting to offer Linux because MSFT will find a way to raise your OEM license costs if you do.
However, I also find it a necessary nuissance to help keep smugglers and criminals from easily moving money around through our banking system.
Oh, really. Has it stopped drug smugglers and criminals from moving money around? They seem to be managing okay. Unless I missed the headline that the drug trade dried up overnight.
Why you might think that large criminal organizations have figured out how to move money around without raising any flags. *shock* *gasp*
So you, him, all of us have to put up with "necessary nuisance" while the big criminals manage to get by. What has that sheep like cooperation bought us? Less drugs? Nope. More security? Sorry. How about a massive money-sucking federal bureaucracy with nothing better to do than stick their nose in the business of ordinary citizens? Yup, got that one.
And people like you are the reason they keep getting away with it. Yes, that's personal.
Suddenly I have the urge to brush up on the words to O' Canada. We seem to have power hungry right wing extremists on one side and twitwits saying things like, "If you haven't done anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about" on the other. And I've had enough of the former and am disgusted by the later. You both deserve each other.
With patent suits. Count on it. Without a patent warchest to cross-license this project will be "IP protected" to death. Unless IBM or someone puts their patent portfolio behind it.
Really sucks you need something like that to keep a hardware project alive. Just like that high school shop class that built the hybrid car that runs on soybean oil. That will get patent sued out existance by the big automakers, out of embarrassment if nothing else.
Office 2003 is nice eye candy and loads pretty fast. Outside that I find no compelling features that make it worth spending the money. I'll install it and support at the customer sites, but at home the last version of Office I bought was '97.
Although it's true that OOo is at least 10 years behind on features like product activation.;)
the Democrats are, much like the Republicans... a vote for the status quo
This is the sort of UTTER BULLSHIT that got GW Bush elected over Al Gore because people were voting for Nader.
Absolutely correct. I'm so sick of hearing that lame ass excuse. In case anyone forgot, the Republicans took control of both houses of Congress in 1994. Anything passed since then, no matter which president signed it, was Republican born and bred. That includes one of our all time/. favorites, the DMCA.
Stop using that crapass excuse for supporting a lying, corrupt and incompetent party. It does make a difference who you vote for.
There are no MySQL's within a 150 miles of Silicon Valley! We will drive the infidel open source hoardes into the sea! MySQL tables will become bloated with corrupt data and their data bits will rot in the desert. Their administrators will wail and lose their jobs as they and their children beg in the street for scraps of data. Our glorious Oracle army will rise up and smite the invader!
"[Insert Senator Name] hurt American security by not voting for the absolutely vital PATRIOT Act"
Okay, so now if I'm on the other side I say something like, "[Insert Senator Name] voted to allow George Bush to continue spying on Americans without a warrant. What's happened to our country?"
It really doesn't matter how you vote anymore, someone will find a way to spin it into you being the devil himself. But that's the way politics has always been. What's changed is the incredible lack of leadership the Congress and Senate have shown in this country. Pushing their responsibilities over on the president because they're too busy trying to get support for their pet earmarks.
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You'd think with all the big issues facing the country something like this wouldn't pass the laugh test. Yet it's made it all the way to the Supreme Court.
If thoughts turn out to be patentable, then I'm going to be first in line to patent any sexual or obscene thought involving a virtualization of another human being, animal or farm implement used for or engaging in sexual activity, for the purpose of self-stimulation.
Then I'm going sue every one of you wankers on /. :) It'll give whole new meaning to the phrase "penny for your thoughts".
It's sort of like Free Republic, the Freepers, starting out with a small group of paid posters to make themselves appear bigger than they actually were.
Working together a small group of people can make a lot of noise.
Whew, for a minute there I didn't think we were getting anything except SCREWED. Glad you cleared that up for me.
Once we have the bulk of the population under the regulatory oversight of the criminal justice system we'll be able to force those godless, indecent hoardes into our nice, Republican cookie-cutter mold of outward piety and ethical lip service.
Long live the Republican party! Long live the Justice Department!
Pretty sad when newspapers in this country have to start worrying about encrypting their source data. Welcome to Republican Amerika, formerly known as the land of the free.
You could have the surviving humans turn into creatures with hyper-reactive DNA to protect themselves against the constantly changing virus patterns. Call them muties or something. They have to constantly test one another's behaviors to make sure a new virus hasn't slipped through.
Cool.
It's not a matter of liking it or not, there are just facts. XP is a pretty good product, but it still takes a monthly antivirus subscription to keep it running in any kind of shape. It's not safe to surf the internet with Windows. The productivity you mentioned is evened out with the virus, trojan and spyware robbing you of up time and cpu cycles.
I don't agree that the Linux experience will have to be all that great to see big changes. MSFT is their own worst enemy. Share price is relatively stagnant and they're always looking for ways to squeeze more revenue out of their user base. Product activation, DRM, Draconian EULA's that are little better than a deal with the devil, annoying licensing restrictions and bloated product offerings. The majority of my business customers hate MSFT. Not just dislike, hate. And the more MSFT squeezes them for revenue, the lower the performance bar that Linux would have to meet to convince them to switch.
There's a perfect storm of negative potential building for MSFT. There is a large base of talented technical people who prefer Linux. Because of the open nature of the licensing, it's much easier to innovate in the OSS world. All the really cool stuff in OS development is happening in Linux. There are big IT service corporations that can support Linux implementations available, including some packaging desktop management systems. Add that to MSFT's own native greed, lack of innovation and institutional inertia and you have an economic room full of gasoline vapors. One spark could set off an explosion of transition.
I know Windows guys don't like to hear this, but going forward my money is not on MSFT or their products.
So, senior management doesn't see the value in IT investment, keeps pushing needed upgrades to the next budget cycle and that's IT's fault? WTF?
I explain it's like being a car mechanic. You can pay now for incremental improvements, or you can pay more later with a complete system upgrade. Then when their database server goes tits up because it's overloaded I can trot out the memo and ask if they remember having that conversation.
Linux distro developers might want to explore voluntary standards for certain types of configurations. Maybe something like configuration assumptions for desktops v servers. Like that commercial with the Easy button? Maybe we have an "easy" configuration for desktop distros that tucks more the inner workings out of sight. But if you take away the inconsistency in the Linux environment, you may be undermining one of its most important strengths.
But at least working with an agent in most states you have specific legal protections that are lacking in online transactions. It's a lot easier to take action in most states against a crooked agent than a crooked seller. Most times they're mandated to have E&O, the real estate agent's professional liability insurance. State oversight boards are notoriously brutal and inflexible. Real estate agents had such a bad reputation that many states laid the hammer down. As a spurned buyer your chances of getting justice from the state real estate commission or the courts are extremely high if your agent might reasonably have known about a potential problem.
The buyer's agent normally gets their cut from the seller. 90% of the time it doesn't cost you anything to have an agent if you're a buyer. In some areas buyer's agents charge up front fees, so ask first.
Truthfully, even if I had to pay them out of my pocket I'd still use a real estate agent for buying property, especially if it's out of town. If something is really wrong they've got a fiduciary duty to inform you about anything material to the value of the property. If they don't they're risking their license and an E&O claim against their broker. I've found the combination of internet research and a good local agent to be the best combination for my property purchases. Trust but verify what they're telling me.
The stockholders are going to revolt!
Do not fuck with us.
If they become economically viable they might actually attract healthy, fertile females who will want to mate with them. *gasp* *horror* They'll start reproducing!!!!
There's no end to this chaos!
So, overall, Malco and the other big chains can kiss my big fat ass if they think I'm going to a theater. My house has comfortable seats, great booze, big screen picture and house-shaking sound. All for a 3 dollar Netflix rental.
It could be significant because MSFT has been doing it while increasing their quarterly profits. When a company needs cash and stiffs their workers on salaries it's a lot more understandable than a company that still manages to increase their quarterly numbers. It would breed a lot of resentment among the rank and file.
It might really be significant if MSFT had to stiff their workers to increase quarterly numbers. Their sales are nearly pure profit, billions in cash every quarter. And they're telling their employees "No soup for you!"
Doesn't make sense. MSFT is not an airline or a smokestack industry. Their sunk costs are pretty insignificant compared to their cash profit margin. For a cash rich company this behavior is oddly out of synch with their earnings.
Wall St. doesn't like it, too bad. It's about time someone stood up for long term value in this country and pulled their head out of that quarterly numbers mind fuck that's all to common. I'm glad to see Google taking the lead.
Stay out of that line. Focus on value. The share price is grossly inflated right now anyway. It'll go up, it'll go down. You pays your money and takes your chances.
And that's why I don't think the lobsters will file an appeal.
I see this same trend among my own customers. There is real preperation going on for NOT moving to Vista. Some of them will probably role anyway, but lately the trend is to move business critical apps to web-based alternatives and move away from MSFT proprietary clients like Outlook and IE. Preparation that makes switching the desktop OS much easier.
I think many would merely use it for leverage to squeeze concessions out of MSFT, but based on the amount of interest and effort I'm seeing doesn't look like posing. It seems serious this time. MSFT will have to come up with better discounts. A few vouchers for training and support calls aren't going to cut it.
Exciting times to be in IT.
Your service hasn't been worth much since about 2001, so it's no big loss for the user. Then you can stop making bad excuses for not wanting to offer Linux because MSFT will find a way to raise your OEM license costs if you do.
Oh, really. Has it stopped drug smugglers and criminals from moving money around? They seem to be managing okay. Unless I missed the headline that the drug trade dried up overnight.
Why you might think that large criminal organizations have figured out how to move money around without raising any flags. *shock* *gasp*
So you, him, all of us have to put up with "necessary nuisance" while the big criminals manage to get by. What has that sheep like cooperation bought us? Less drugs? Nope. More security? Sorry. How about a massive money-sucking federal bureaucracy with nothing better to do than stick their nose in the business of ordinary citizens? Yup, got that one.
And people like you are the reason they keep getting away with it. Yes, that's personal.
Suddenly I have the urge to brush up on the words to O' Canada. We seem to have power hungry right wing extremists on one side and twitwits saying things like, "If you haven't done anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about" on the other. And I've had enough of the former and am disgusted by the later. You both deserve each other.
Really sucks you need something like that to keep a hardware project alive. Just like that high school shop class that built the hybrid car that runs on soybean oil. That will get patent sued out existance by the big automakers, out of embarrassment if nothing else.
Although it's true that OOo is at least 10 years behind on features like product activation. ;)
This is the sort of UTTER BULLSHIT that got GW Bush elected over Al Gore because people were voting for Nader.
Absolutely correct. I'm so sick of hearing that lame ass excuse. In case anyone forgot, the Republicans took control of both houses of Congress in 1994. Anything passed since then, no matter which president signed it, was Republican born and bred. That includes one of our all time /. favorites, the DMCA.
Stop using that crapass excuse for supporting a lying, corrupt and incompetent party. It does make a difference who you vote for.
There are no MySQL's within a 150 miles of Silicon Valley! We will drive the infidel open source hoardes into the sea! MySQL tables will become bloated with corrupt data and their data bits will rot in the desert. Their administrators will wail and lose their jobs as they and their children beg in the street for scraps of data. Our glorious Oracle army will rise up and smite the invader!
Okay, so now if I'm on the other side I say something like, "[Insert Senator Name] voted to allow George Bush to continue spying on Americans without a warrant. What's happened to our country?"
It really doesn't matter how you vote anymore, someone will find a way to spin it into you being the devil himself. But that's the way politics has always been. What's changed is the incredible lack of leadership the Congress and Senate have shown in this country. Pushing their responsibilities over on the president because they're too busy trying to get support for their pet earmarks.