Since a large portion of the patent portfolio is already expired, and the remainder will be expired in the near future, it's entirely possible that you may today be able to create an MP4 codec that is not patent encumbered. After all - the standard was released in 1999, so any patent filed post 1999 is for something in addition to the actual standard, and the rest will all be expiring very shortly.
There don't seem to be too many people replicating the actions of George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, nor Benjamin Franklin either. What are you trying to say? Note, in case you're slow, they all defied their rightful government of the time, and committed far worse actions than Snowden. Or are you an ardent Benedict Arnold supporter? I'm sure the British believe him honorable.
Primer and Sunshine are both fantasy rather than Sci-Fi, and Sunshine was rather unwatchable (IMHO), Armageddon with the Sun as a target, or a really long Twilight Zone episode.
Some of the better sci fi movies that have come out over the past 30 years that seem in the realm of the possible and do not use time travel, aliens, or faster than light travel for their story lines include in no particular order:
Gattaca,
Elysium - excluding the space station, it would have to be considerably further away than it looked, and an open design to space to allow "crash" landings? Well, maybe....
Antiviral - look beyond the maybe not so preposterous story line
Runaway
Surrogates - just a little further into the "virtual" world and robots
Enemy of the State
Contagion
The 6th Day - cloning and memory control, seems more realistic by the day
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - long winded, but the ability to control memories
The Island - cloning a slave work force and having memory imprints to quickly online them into productivity
Deep Impact
RoboCop - corny, but with today's robots, bionics, and again, that memory imprint "technology"
Outland?
Don't get me wrong, there's lots of good sci-fi flicks out there, but many use a piece of fantasy as the underlying prop. The only one that I have seen and didn't list is Star Trek, which, despite having faster than light travel, actually has more science based features in aggregate than anything listed above, including its FTL travel. It's humanoid lifeforms speaking english everywhere... well, that's what kills it as sci fi, but they needed something besides boring dead planets to visit as foils for the ever impressive Capt James T Kirk.
Stargate? It was more plausible as the seeding of the universe with humanoids, but again, uses an alien race as the a story basis. At least their aliens were completely bereft of "human" rationale and logic, for the most part, working within their own constructs.The "ancients" metaphysical beings killed this one, even though that may be a more realistic final picture for ourselves, in some sort of computer matrix. We're already discussing uploading ourselves after all.
Simple solution - make the minimum age 18. This might also force gymnastics back to something that doesn't focus on size and weight as the defining criteria for "ability". Hint - it's a lot easier for 4 foot of 80 pounds of bone and muscle to spin around than it is for 5+ and 100+. Look at the men - strength is a feature, for women strength alone is a negative, as it adds body mass.
Amazing! I wouldn't have known what I do was the courteous thing to do without your obviously superior wisdom. I didn't think it needed to be said, you have shown me the error of my ways. I bow down to your magnificence, may your light always shine so brightly, and I'll be sure to pound the pedantic statements into the ground in the future!
I have no issue with recording the police nor having the police record all they do. They are in a special position to infringe on other's people's rights and are confrontational in doing so. Having that recorded protects them as well as those they interact with. Now recording regular people 24/7? Yes, I'm 100% against that occurring against the subject's wishes.
To be on topic - the funniest quote was the glass owner's worries about invasion of privacy. Maybe she'll think twice about wearing it all the time now.
Of course, they could always turn their headlights "off" and then run you over while you're walking your black dog because they didn't see you in your black jeans and brown leather jacket. There's a reason drivers hit the high beams when there's no oncoming traffic, it's so they can see those types of people on unlit or poorly lit residential streets. I'll also note that there's no reason for the dog walker to stare into the headlights. Looking to the side should be easy, given the extra light.
Actually, I read in a report on bbc that scientists are testing how combinations of amino acids form into cell like structures with some success just last year. So the testable and probable portions may be done sooner than you think. It's just that we may not be able to say with 100% certainty that it occurred just "so".
You are incorrect and should stop parroting the publishers' lines. According to right of first sale, that boxed "license" is transferrable, regardless of what the EULA says. That was decided in several court cases that I no longer reference because I assumed this was obvious to all. Otherwise GameStop would be illegal and have been shuttered long ago. Now, what Steam does is actually only license you the software, and removes for all intents and purposes the legal issue of material goods. Thus, they can restrict what you're allowed to do with your "subscription" since circumventing Steam means you're violating your terms of service with Steam, which is enforceable. Gog works similarly, since the purchases are tied to your account. There's nothing that stops you in either case from handing the account over to someone else, in essence selling it, but you can't legally take a single item and move it to another account, unless the service allows you to do so.
But let me spell out the subtext here for anyone that can't read between the lines: If you try and keep the government from storing this data, we'll just go find someone else to hold it.
Nice attempt at misdirection, but the gov holding the data is only worse than the gov having access to said data to begin with, which is the real issue. 4th, 9th, and 10th Amendments and all, ya know
I think OP erred in saying everyone is "watched". That's simply not so. Their data may be collected, and it may be looked at later, but that's not QUITE the same thing as "being watched".
I would have to agree: because it's collected and stored indefinitely, you can be watched at any time. This is even worse than just being watched. Now you can be watched at will, and things can be manipulated (think selectively edited) to make things look other than they are.
well stated, and a car analogy to boot. I'd mod you up if I could. This is the reason I generally don't use Steam, because I *don't* own the game, and have no control over it. With an actual copy of the game, download or box, I own the media, and at least can do things with it that are outside the bounds of a Steam license, such as resell it.
I've owned just about every major brand of router including some of the "good" ones (WRT-54G) which, modified or not, all were complete and total crap hardware in comparison to the Airport Extreme. I run VPNs constantly, and with any of the other routers, I'd get drops, reconnects, and lost connections regularly. I would reboot them usually weekly, and a few almost daily. It got worse as more neighbors got connected, channel hopping didn't help. Finally broke down and paid what I considered the Airport Extreme "tax", mainly because business class A/B and G routers were starting at $400 at the time, and couldn't be happier. It's been rebooted maybe 4 times in the past 2 years, for updates. I don't loose connections. Essentially, it just works. "Business" class connectivity starts below $200 now. BTW, the drops were most common on Dell / IBM laptops.
Never had an issue with their warranty service. Had 2 batteries replaced, no questions, and a refurb mini that had a bizarre issue booting was replaced with a brand new one (I did go in with an exact description of the problem and what I'd already tried in isolating it). The phone was a simple walk in, here's the problem - walk out with a brand new phone in less than 15 min. I'm sure someone somewhere has been screwed, but my experiences have been even in excess of what I would expect.
2004, 2006, 2009 laptops all extremely well made and even serviceable. The 2013 is less serviceable, but, when the time comes in 5-8 years, I'm sure I'll take it apart and service the fans or drop in a bigger faster PCIe flash drive. Oh, and these laptops are used daily to as little as a couple of times a week, at least the 2004 was, it's been sold off for a couple of years now.
Don't know what you're talking about - the current keyboard I have (Apple - bought last year) has normal arrow keys and the standard block of 6 keys above them. I even have the standard num pad on the right. Perhaps you just need to buy a non-specialty keyboard and stop complaining about what you didn't buy?
I tried the beta, for about 20s.... It was several stories behind, didn't display 80% of the immediate information on the main page shown in "classic", and otherwise did nothing much but make things harder to read and pick out. When you're used to green bar headlines, that's what you're looking for to quickly skim stories. Sure, I could learn to look for bold type, but it's not as clean a delineation, takes more effort, and I just don't care to change my habits. If you force me to change, I might change by looking elsewhere. You'll note this pattern in such well-loved products as Vista and Win8/8.1, among others. Yahoo also wants a new look, I bailed on that. GMail is foisting some new crap on me and breaking all the rich client standard APIs, so GMail can go suck slime. I now provide my own email and chat services, and couldn't be happier. I can also write my own news aggregator so I can skim news. I'll "miss out" on the comments, but then, I'll have more time, to write a better news aggregator. Actually, that doesn't sound like a bad idea.
Definitely liking what would be "old" cars. I don't need to go advertising everywhere I am via an easily triangulated radio signal. At this point, we can safely ask "Is this an NSA plot?"
Slashdot Mirror
They may be new - and they should cover new things. The old ones will be perfectly serviceable.
Since a large portion of the patent portfolio is already expired, and the remainder will be expired in the near future, it's entirely possible that you may today be able to create an MP4 codec that is not patent encumbered. After all - the standard was released in 1999, so any patent filed post 1999 is for something in addition to the actual standard, and the rest will all be expiring very shortly.
There don't seem to be too many people replicating the actions of George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, nor Benjamin Franklin either. What are you trying to say? Note, in case you're slow, they all defied their rightful government of the time, and committed far worse actions than Snowden. Or are you an ardent Benedict Arnold supporter? I'm sure the British believe him honorable.
Some of the better sci fi movies that have come out over the past 30 years that seem in the realm of the possible and do not use time travel, aliens, or faster than light travel for their story lines include in no particular order:
Don't get me wrong, there's lots of good sci-fi flicks out there, but many use a piece of fantasy as the underlying prop. The only one that I have seen and didn't list is Star Trek, which, despite having faster than light travel, actually has more science based features in aggregate than anything listed above, including its FTL travel. It's humanoid lifeforms speaking english everywhere... well, that's what kills it as sci fi, but they needed something besides boring dead planets to visit as foils for the ever impressive Capt James T Kirk.
Stargate? It was more plausible as the seeding of the universe with humanoids, but again, uses an alien race as the a story basis. At least their aliens were completely bereft of "human" rationale and logic, for the most part, working within their own constructs.The "ancients" metaphysical beings killed this one, even though that may be a more realistic final picture for ourselves, in some sort of computer matrix. We're already discussing uploading ourselves after all.
Primer was very cool, but also very much fantasy....
Simple solution - make the minimum age 18. This might also force gymnastics back to something that doesn't focus on size and weight as the defining criteria for "ability". Hint - it's a lot easier for 4 foot of 80 pounds of bone and muscle to spin around than it is for 5+ and 100+. Look at the men - strength is a feature, for women strength alone is a negative, as it adds body mass.
I certainly hope that NSA contractors are a little better than your run-of-the-mill company in terms of security.
Hate to break it to you....
Amazing! I wouldn't have known what I do was the courteous thing to do without your obviously superior wisdom. I didn't think it needed to be said, you have shown me the error of my ways. I bow down to your magnificence, may your light always shine so brightly, and I'll be sure to pound the pedantic statements into the ground in the future!
I have no issue with recording the police nor having the police record all they do. They are in a special position to infringe on other's people's rights and are confrontational in doing so. Having that recorded protects them as well as those they interact with. Now recording regular people 24/7? Yes, I'm 100% against that occurring against the subject's wishes.
To be on topic - the funniest quote was the glass owner's worries about invasion of privacy. Maybe she'll think twice about wearing it all the time now.
Of course, they could always turn their headlights "off" and then run you over while you're walking your black dog because they didn't see you in your black jeans and brown leather jacket. There's a reason drivers hit the high beams when there's no oncoming traffic, it's so they can see those types of people on unlit or poorly lit residential streets. I'll also note that there's no reason for the dog walker to stare into the headlights. Looking to the side should be easy, given the extra light.
Actually, I read in a report on bbc that scientists are testing how combinations of amino acids form into cell like structures with some success just last year. So the testable and probable portions may be done sooner than you think. It's just that we may not be able to say with 100% certainty that it occurred just "so".
You are incorrect and should stop parroting the publishers' lines. According to right of first sale, that boxed "license" is transferrable, regardless of what the EULA says. That was decided in several court cases that I no longer reference because I assumed this was obvious to all. Otherwise GameStop would be illegal and have been shuttered long ago. Now, what Steam does is actually only license you the software, and removes for all intents and purposes the legal issue of material goods. Thus, they can restrict what you're allowed to do with your "subscription" since circumventing Steam means you're violating your terms of service with Steam, which is enforceable. Gog works similarly, since the purchases are tied to your account. There's nothing that stops you in either case from handing the account over to someone else, in essence selling it, but you can't legally take a single item and move it to another account, unless the service allows you to do so.
But let me spell out the subtext here for anyone that can't read between the lines: If you try and keep the government from storing this data, we'll just go find someone else to hold it.
Nice attempt at misdirection, but the gov holding the data is only worse than the gov having access to said data to begin with, which is the real issue. 4th, 9th, and 10th Amendments and all, ya know
I think OP erred in saying everyone is "watched". That's simply not so. Their data may be collected, and it may be looked at later, but that's not QUITE the same thing as "being watched".
I would have to agree: because it's collected and stored indefinitely, you can be watched at any time. This is even worse than just being watched. Now you can be watched at will, and things can be manipulated (think selectively edited) to make things look other than they are.
well stated, and a car analogy to boot. I'd mod you up if I could. This is the reason I generally don't use Steam, because I *don't* own the game, and have no control over it. With an actual copy of the game, download or box, I own the media, and at least can do things with it that are outside the bounds of a Steam license, such as resell it.
I've owned just about every major brand of router including some of the "good" ones (WRT-54G) which, modified or not, all were complete and total crap hardware in comparison to the Airport Extreme. I run VPNs constantly, and with any of the other routers, I'd get drops, reconnects, and lost connections regularly. I would reboot them usually weekly, and a few almost daily. It got worse as more neighbors got connected, channel hopping didn't help. Finally broke down and paid what I considered the Airport Extreme "tax", mainly because business class A/B and G routers were starting at $400 at the time, and couldn't be happier. It's been rebooted maybe 4 times in the past 2 years, for updates. I don't loose connections. Essentially, it just works. "Business" class connectivity starts below $200 now. BTW, the drops were most common on Dell / IBM laptops.
Never had an issue with their warranty service. Had 2 batteries replaced, no questions, and a refurb mini that had a bizarre issue booting was replaced with a brand new one (I did go in with an exact description of the problem and what I'd already tried in isolating it). The phone was a simple walk in, here's the problem - walk out with a brand new phone in less than 15 min. I'm sure someone somewhere has been screwed, but my experiences have been even in excess of what I would expect.
2004, 2006, 2009 laptops all extremely well made and even serviceable. The 2013 is less serviceable, but, when the time comes in 5-8 years, I'm sure I'll take it apart and service the fans or drop in a bigger faster PCIe flash drive. Oh, and these laptops are used daily to as little as a couple of times a week, at least the 2004 was, it's been sold off for a couple of years now.
Don't know what you're talking about - the current keyboard I have (Apple - bought last year) has normal arrow keys and the standard block of 6 keys above them. I even have the standard num pad on the right. Perhaps you just need to buy a non-specialty keyboard and stop complaining about what you didn't buy?
Buy a mac, made well and the warranty is honored, should you need it.
I tried the beta, for about 20s.... It was several stories behind, didn't display 80% of the immediate information on the main page shown in "classic", and otherwise did nothing much but make things harder to read and pick out. When you're used to green bar headlines, that's what you're looking for to quickly skim stories. Sure, I could learn to look for bold type, but it's not as clean a delineation, takes more effort, and I just don't care to change my habits. If you force me to change, I might change by looking elsewhere. You'll note this pattern in such well-loved products as Vista and Win8/8.1, among others. Yahoo also wants a new look, I bailed on that. GMail is foisting some new crap on me and breaking all the rich client standard APIs, so GMail can go suck slime. I now provide my own email and chat services, and couldn't be happier. I can also write my own news aggregator so I can skim news. I'll "miss out" on the comments, but then, I'll have more time, to write a better news aggregator. Actually, that doesn't sound like a bad idea.
and I'm picturing the "ch ch ch ch ch" sounds from a 70s series.....
Under what law are we required to continue to allow a charter?
And can be promptly re-written to be "safe"
Definitely liking what would be "old" cars. I don't need to go advertising everywhere I am via an easily triangulated radio signal. At this point, we can safely ask "Is this an NSA plot?"