Nice to see Microsoft being bitten in the ass by the same patent troll strategy they are adopting.
The much-needed fix to the software patent problem will only happen after the big companies repeatedly pay out more through patent enforcement than they gain from it.
The real problem is big companies, especially Microsoft have invested so much in filing millions of non-innovative, frivolous, obviously prior, stolen and open-ended patents, and have enough lawyers, lobbyists and paid-off politicians in their pocket that there's no hope of getting the patent law fixed until Microsoft want it to be.
>> Even if an arrest is in violation of the law, to win a lawsuit on it, you have to show that it was not only improper, but that the cop knew it was improper.
isn't there a case for requiring a cop to know the law that he is enforcing? The last thing we need is incompetent cops around. They should be just as subject to dismissal because of incompetence as any other professional job. In fact even more so, given the impact they have on peoples lives.
specifically to your case, I think even the most pro-cop judge would find it hard to defend a cop claiming that he didn't know 2:30pm wasn't night time.
Isn't this exactly what Microsoft's whole philosophy has been for decades?
That "assume the user is a moron" thinking is largely the reason why Windows and most other Microsoft products are so limited, inefficient and generally unusable, especially for people who actually know how computers work.
Obligatory car analogy: Its like welding the hood down on a car. Great for soccer moms, dealers and manufacturers. Hopeless for anyone who actually has the knowledge/ability/desire to maintain their own vehicle.
>> It also raises the question of where all the money donated to Canadian and other cancer societies, and especially the billions spent buying merchandise with little pink ribbons on it goes, if not to actual cancer research like this."
Is there really a law in Germany that all wi-fi networks have to be secured? I personally don't know but it sure seems unlikely that it would be a legal requirement.
If there isn't such a law this guy actually hasn't done anything wrong at all so he could tell the record companies to go screw themselves. Furthermore he should counter-sue for all losses associated with their malicious and ill-advised actions against him.
Companies always seem to try to de-skill stuff then find cheaper replacements. And it always comes back and bites them in the ass. Software development is a skilled job. Calling it 'coding' is just one of the ways they use to try and de-skill it.
I hate the word 'coding' it completely sets the wrong impression and totally degrades and devalues the work that a software engineer actually does. Its as insulting as describing hardware design engineers as welders.
The ideal gaming platform would be one where not just the game but most of the electronics that have traditionally been in the console are also in the cartridge. Mass production of cartridges would keep that affordable to the end user. The console would effectively just be the power supply and monitor and controller interconnects. This approach has many benefits including: * New games could take full advantage of new hardware and general tech advances. * Games hardware could be custom tailored for each game. * Owners would never need to upgrade their base console. * Cartridges would be practically impossible to pirate cost-effectively.
I would pay for a download only if its totally free of DRM and any other phone-home tech.
The only reason I consider pirated stuff first is because its more flexible/usable and under my control than exactly the same thing bought through legal channels with all the DRM intact.
Its rude, demeaning and unnecessarily invasive to require people to seek online permission every time they want to play locally stored stuff that they already legally own. Also its been clear that its at the whim of the company that they continue to support the use of customers own property.
In fact, Sony, Microsoft and Apple have all proved that they don't give one shit about customers expensive investments in their hardware and/or media once they've been paid for. All those companies are already guilty of arbitrarily remotely bricking multitudes of their own customers property with no warning or recourse available, just because the companies felt like changing their marketing strategy.
There's also a whole bunch of stupid morons who welcome the ultimate nanny state and apparently won't be happy until every road and freeway has at most a 10 mph speed limit.
They can only exist because there will always be an argument that speed limits should be reduced further because you can always find someone stupid enough to manage to get themselves hurt in or by a car, no matter how slow it was going.
Society, especially those do-gooders, need to accept that individuals, not the state, have responsibility for their own safety, and that preventing any risk of human injury at absolutely any cost to society is a ridiculous road to go down. Removal of absolutely all physical danger is impossible to achieve in this world anyway.
Apart from anything else, by removing all forms of natural selection we are really harming the human gene pool.
>> Also I rather assume the actual design of the left lane is for those who have no intention of exiting any time soon,
Absolutely wrong. Wow finally a chance to rant at one of you morons.
>> The GPS is bearing down with 'keep left', 'keep left', 'keep left', and I do so. Stay Left means don't exit right, it absolutely doesn't mean hog the fast lane. If your GPS told you to drive off a cliff, would you do that too?
On any road with multiple lanes, especially freeways, the leftmost lane is meant to be a fast passing lane. Proper behavior is to use it to overtake then return to a more rightward lane as soon as you reasonably can.
It irritates the hell out of me when people sit in the fast lane of a 75mph freeway doing 55 mph or less. The fact that they are ignoring all the "slower traffic keep right" signs and the big queue of traffic behind them can only mean that they are being pig-headed and selfish, as surely no one can be that stupid to not notice anything wrong. The irony is they probably think that by going stupidly slowly they're actually being safe drivers, regardless of the chaos and tailbacks they're causing all around them.
OK well by that definition that includes all the European countries except the UK, as British English (i.e. not American) is the official EU language, yet is not the native language of EU countries (except the UK) so is a second language to everyone except Brits. The EU alone provides nearly 3 times the entire population of the US as non-native British English speakers.
Why is it that Americans are always so arrogant/naive in assuming everything they/the US have and do is biggest/best? Is the education system there really that low quality?
>> and the way they spell some of their words like "neighbour"....and what makes you incorrectly presume that the US is the reference authority of the English language? Actually its the US that is the odd country out when it comes to spelling English words properly.
>>> Private industry is doing all sorts of analysis of you as a consumer to provide you better service and to let them make more profit. But the same consumer that's okay with private industry doing that is not okay, in a knee-jerk reaction, with government doing that. ----- The reason is, Airlines and such don't have the same authority over you as the government. Its OK for them to know about it because at the end of the day we still have a choice to use a different airline. I'll be OK with it when we have real control over how the government/police can choose to treat us.
I bet the little guys can't each much more than their own body weight in oil per day. Have you seen how big the oil slick is? who the heck has that much oil-eating bacteria ready to go?
The problem is that the average joe won't find out about the DRM issue until he's paid for the disk. Only half the people with problems playing it will bother to take the disk back for a refund, the rest will presume its their player thats somehow faulty, or just be too lazy to go get a refund. Of the returned disks, I bet in many if not most cases the store will just re-shrinkwrap it and put it right back on the shelf. Consequently the movie industry will still incorrectly blame piracy rather than faulty DRM for the difference between their sales predictions and actual sales, partly because of their own ongoing refusal to accept that the whole DRM concept is retarded, but mostly because they won't actually see that many disk returns.
Yeah I've spent about 10 years with Linux and have learnt the same lesson several times over. Now when choosing new hardware. any mention of AMD or ATI in the hardware specs anywhere is enough to absolutely remove that product from any further purchasing decisions. I always make a point of ensuring any new hardware I buy has intel cpu (and chipset preferably) and nVidia graphics, just because they always work smoothly and perform better under Linux. From multiple experiences ATI and AMD both add significant extra work for reinstalls and much less reliable operation overall.
Slashdot Mirror
>> they get something back for it: the technology cannot be used by open source software.
They are only a licencee of the technology. They have no control over the technology itself or if the owning company sells it to anyone else too.
Nice to see Microsoft being bitten in the ass by the same patent troll strategy they are adopting.
The much-needed fix to the software patent problem will only happen after the big companies repeatedly pay out more through patent enforcement than they gain from it.
The real problem is big companies, especially Microsoft have invested so much in filing millions of non-innovative, frivolous, obviously prior, stolen and open-ended patents, and have enough lawyers, lobbyists and paid-off politicians in their pocket that there's no hope of getting the patent law fixed until Microsoft want it to be.
Why pick on Christianity? Dress code is always a part of religion. I don't see you arguing against Jews, Hindus, Seikhs, Buddhists, etc.
>> Even if an arrest is in violation of the law, to win a lawsuit on it, you have to show that it was not only improper, but that the cop knew it was improper.
isn't there a case for requiring a cop to know the law that he is enforcing? The last thing we need is incompetent cops around. They should be just as subject to dismissal because of incompetence as any other professional job. In fact even more so, given the impact they have on peoples lives.
specifically to your case, I think even the most pro-cop judge would find it hard to defend a cop claiming that he didn't know 2:30pm wasn't night time.
Isn't this exactly what Microsoft's whole philosophy has been for decades?
That "assume the user is a moron" thinking is largely the reason why Windows and most other Microsoft products are so limited, inefficient and generally unusable, especially for people who actually know how computers work.
Obligatory car analogy:
Its like welding the hood down on a car. Great for soccer moms, dealers and manufacturers. Hopeless for anyone who actually has the knowledge/ability/desire to maintain their own vehicle.
>> It also raises the question of where all the money donated to Canadian and other cancer societies, and especially the billions spent buying merchandise with little pink ribbons on it goes, if not to actual cancer research like this."
Answer:
http://www.preventcancer.com/losing/acs/wealthiest_links.htm
Is there really a law in Germany that all wi-fi networks have to be secured? I personally don't know but it sure seems unlikely that it would be a legal requirement.
If there isn't such a law this guy actually hasn't done anything wrong at all so he could tell the record companies to go screw themselves. Furthermore he should counter-sue for all losses associated with their malicious and ill-advised actions against him.
Companies always seem to try to de-skill stuff then find cheaper replacements. And it always comes back and bites them in the ass.
Software development is a skilled job. Calling it 'coding' is just one of the ways they use to try and de-skill it.
More job security for us C/C++ programmers !
I hate the word 'coding' it completely sets the wrong impression and totally degrades and devalues the work that a software engineer actually does.
Its as insulting as describing hardware design engineers as welders.
Why? embedded controllers are easy and cheap these days.
The ideal gaming platform would be one where not just the game but most of the electronics that have traditionally been in the console are also in the cartridge. Mass production of cartridges would keep that affordable to the end user. The console would effectively just be the power supply and monitor and controller interconnects.
This approach has many benefits including:
* New games could take full advantage of new hardware and general tech advances.
* Games hardware could be custom tailored for each game.
* Owners would never need to upgrade their base console.
* Cartridges would be practically impossible to pirate cost-effectively.
I would pay for a download only if its totally free of DRM and any other phone-home tech.
The only reason I consider pirated stuff first is because its more flexible/usable and under my control than exactly the same thing bought through legal channels with all the DRM intact.
Its rude, demeaning and unnecessarily invasive to require people to seek online permission every time they want to play locally stored stuff that they already legally own. Also its been clear that its at the whim of the company that they continue to support the use of customers own property.
In fact, Sony, Microsoft and Apple have all proved that they don't give one shit about customers expensive investments in their hardware and/or media once they've been paid for. All those companies are already guilty of arbitrarily remotely bricking multitudes of their own customers property with no warning or recourse available, just because the companies felt like changing their marketing strategy.
There's also a whole bunch of stupid morons who welcome the ultimate nanny state and apparently won't be happy until every road and freeway has at most a 10 mph speed limit.
They can only exist because there will always be an argument that speed limits should be reduced further because you can always find someone stupid enough to manage to get themselves hurt in or by a car, no matter how slow it was going.
Society, especially those do-gooders, need to accept that individuals, not the state, have responsibility for their own safety, and that preventing any risk of human injury at absolutely any cost to society is a ridiculous road to go down. Removal of absolutely all physical danger is impossible to achieve in this world anyway.
Apart from anything else, by removing all forms of natural selection we are really harming the human gene pool.
>> Also I rather assume the actual design of the left lane is for those who have no intention of exiting any time soon,
Absolutely wrong. Wow finally a chance to rant at one of you morons.
>> The GPS is bearing down with 'keep left', 'keep left', 'keep left', and I do so.
Stay Left means don't exit right, it absolutely doesn't mean hog the fast lane. If your GPS told you to drive off a cliff, would you do that too?
On any road with multiple lanes, especially freeways, the leftmost lane is meant to be a fast passing lane. Proper behavior is to use it to overtake then return to a more rightward lane as soon as you reasonably can.
It irritates the hell out of me when people sit in the fast lane of a 75mph freeway doing 55 mph or less. The fact that they are ignoring all the "slower traffic keep right" signs and the big queue of traffic behind them can only mean that they are being pig-headed and selfish, as surely no one can be that stupid to not notice anything wrong. The irony is they probably think that by going stupidly slowly they're actually being safe drivers, regardless of the chaos and tailbacks they're causing all around them.
Why do you need a securid key with you all the time? Can't you just leave it next to your PC or in your car or where ever else makes most sense?
I'm offended that Apple won't let me write iphone apps in Fortran.
OK well by that definition that includes all the European countries except the UK, as British English (i.e. not American) is the official EU language, yet is not the native language of EU countries (except the UK) so is a second language to everyone except Brits. The EU alone provides nearly 3 times the entire population of the US as non-native British English speakers.
Why is it that Americans are always so arrogant/naive in assuming everything they/the US have and do is biggest/best? Is the education system there really that low quality?
>> But if you insist, we could rename it "American".
Much better. I agree wholeheartedly.
>> After all, that's what most non-native speakers know.
Sorry but I think the population of India, Australia, Canada and all the other ex-colonies except the US would disagree with that.
>> In any case, there's no single standard for English
Of course there is. Its as used in England. Thats why its called English.
>> and the way they spell some of their words like "neighbour". ...and what makes you incorrectly presume that the US is the reference authority of the English language? Actually its the US that is the odd country out when it comes to spelling English words properly.
>>> Private industry is doing all sorts of analysis of you as a consumer to provide you better service and to let them make more profit. But the same consumer that's okay with private industry doing that is not okay, in a knee-jerk reaction, with government doing that.
-----
The reason is, Airlines and such don't have the same authority over you as the government. Its OK for them to know about it because at the end of the day we still have a choice to use a different airline. I'll be OK with it when we have real control over how the government/police can choose to treat us.
I bet the little guys can't each much more than their own body weight in oil per day. Have you seen how big the oil slick is? who the heck has that much oil-eating bacteria ready to go?
The problem is that the average joe won't find out about the DRM issue until he's paid for the disk.
Only half the people with problems playing it will bother to take the disk back for a refund, the rest will presume its their player thats somehow faulty, or just be too lazy to go get a refund.
Of the returned disks, I bet in many if not most cases the store will just re-shrinkwrap it and put it right back on the shelf.
Consequently the movie industry will still incorrectly blame piracy rather than faulty DRM for the difference between their sales predictions and actual sales, partly because of their own ongoing refusal to accept that the whole DRM concept is retarded, but mostly because they won't actually see that many disk returns.
Yeah I've spent about 10 years with Linux and have learnt the same lesson several times over. Now when choosing new hardware. any mention of AMD or ATI in the hardware specs anywhere is enough to absolutely remove that product from any further purchasing decisions.
I always make a point of ensuring any new hardware I buy has intel cpu (and chipset preferably) and nVidia graphics, just because they always work smoothly and perform better under Linux. From multiple experiences ATI and AMD both add significant extra work for reinstalls and much less reliable operation overall.