Geez, if these eggheads ever stopped looking up for a few minutes and looked down at what they're standing on they could've saved themselves years of arguing...
Would you have asked to take it home before reading this story?
Yes, but only because the other night on Dateline they said if I had repairs made to my car I should ask for the old parts back (to make sure they actually did the work rather than just put some greasy fingerprints on my fender and hand me a bill...)
btw, anyone need some worn-out brake shoes and a muffler with a hole in it? Never mind, there's a flea market just down the road from my house...
how have you approached your ISP when the performance repeatedly fell short of your expectations?
With dial-up there's almost no way the performance will fall short of your expectationss, because you expect it to suck (especially after using something, anything, better.)
If I wanted to be really sadistic, I could instead present site readers with a sentence, in which they have to fill in either "their," "there," or "they're."
I heard that's the scheme Microsoft originally used for the installation key for the Vista beta but had to abandon it after the third week of nobody being able to install the thing.
It really pisses me off that we, Australians, invent so much stuff and then just sell it off for a quick buck to some foreign company rather than commercialising is ourselves. The Australian government has got a lot to answer for.
It's not helping that you guys are way down there at the "bottom" of the world, either. I think you should give some serious consideration to relocating a little closer to the population centers of the world; the shipping costs alone have to be just about killing you (besides, why would someone buy stale nucular fuel shipped from almost the South Pole when they can make their own fresh fuel right here at home?!) In short, until you can overcome the transportation issues inherent in being about a zillion miles away from your customer base your best bet is to just export your ideas and let someone else implement them.
(in all seriousness: the "because they're very far away" answer is so far the ONLY way the wife and I have been able to convince our two three-year-olds we can't just pick up and go visit The Wiggles some weekend...though one of them actually just wants to go because on our globe Australia is pink.)
I dunno, have you heard some of the crap the "artists" are recording these days? $14.95 for a disk full of it seems like a "fantastic amount of money" to me...
This brings to mind the Dilbert strip where the PHB is reminded by his secretary that he should NOT turn off his laptop while in-flight: "how else would they turn over control of the jet to you in an emergency?!"
"As the patent holder...how much you'd get to charge for licensing fees."
True, and in that regard maybe "industry" will be encouraged to produce some useful things (perhaps on their own initiative...) that they've heretofore been reluctant to because of the implied threat of "injunction". Of course, that's exactly the point the GP was trying to make about "forced licensing" (slowly the lights are coming on...) and even though I assume a very strong "laissez-faire" position in most cases, I'm not sure I want the government being put in the position of enforcing someone's "I own it and I say nobody can do anything with it even if they want to pay me to do something with it" childishness; if an idea's useful to society and the patent holder wants to deny access to the idea simply because they can I cry "foul" on the patent holder because that goes against at least the spirit of the patent process in the first place; patents don't exist so someone can play "king of the hill" with a huge pile of IP, patents exist to keep someone else from profiting from an innovation at the expense of the innovator. In that regard, this decision is pure gold
[tinfoil hat]I just wonder what's going to happen to it when someone decides to 'forcibly license' the manufacture of those 200mpg fuel systems and free energy devices that "big oil" and the auto companies have been patent-squatting on for decades...;-) [/tinfoil hat]
And why should I care if my "competition" manufactures a product for which I have a patent as long as I can still reap some benefits from all their hard work? Here's a few scenarios:
I have a patent for widgets. My company makes high quality widgets. My competition makes even better widgets (without my permission)
I sue the living crap out of them. I just don't get an immediate injunction against them while the case is in court. Result: they make a million widgets while the litigation rages and, since I have a valid and enforcable patent (see "My company makes widgets" above), I win the lawsuit and reap the benefits of my competition's (illegal) work.
I have a patent for widgets**. My company makes high quality widgets. My competition makes cheap, crappy widgets and floods the market with their garbage at a price that not only undercuts my price but one that they aren't able to sustain, causing them to go out of business quickly.
I want to sue the living crap out of them, but I'm screwed because there's nobody to sue (but no more screwed than I'd have been if all this had happened six months ago...)
I have a patent for widgets. My company doesn't make widgets (and hasn't for the lifetime of the patent; I've just been sitting on the thing hoping someone would make some widgets so I could sue them...) My competition makes widgets (at this point I'm getting tired of typing, so flip a coin on whether they make good ones or crappy ones...)
I try to sue the living crap out of them but find that I'm screwed, and I deserve to be; my competition will reap the rewards of their hard work and I'll be punished for being a "patent troll."
There are many other possibilities, but overall they're all a little brighter from the inventor/innovator's point-of-view (heck, I might even dust off some of those old ideas I've been figuring someone'd been sitting on the patent for...and I'm a classic cynic!)
**I know, I know, this is assuming a fairness that in all probability won't actually show up in court...
I imagine such technology (we're now talking "bionics" here, not just biometric any more...) wouldn't come cheap; who's going to foot the bill for all these toe-drives? Bankers are notoriously tight (they'll fight tooth-and-toenail over the smallest of charges) and surely the bank's customers will feel their patronage is being trampled on just to pay for something that's "the banks' responsibility anyway..."
Not to mention, we don't know where the branch managers stand on all this. Whoops, I guess I did mention it. Duh. Open mouth, insert... hey, wait, I just had an idea for a nifty case-mod to go along with these toe-drives!)
"...you don't have to be a Sci-Fi author to imagine crazy abuses of this data."
No, but apparently a/. account helps.
Personally, I'm more aggravated at the colossal waste of taxpayer money this represents; it's not like the NSA couldn't just (with one of their exitsting see-you-through-the-tinfoil satellites) look at my circumference to see I've got Papa John's and the Chinese restaurant on speed-dial.
That really makes you think about how long someone who really has hostile intents could stay undetected.
Answer: Pretty much as long as they wanted to.
Remember all those Mission: Impossible episodes (the "good" T.V. ones, not the "so-so" Cruise-missiles they've been releasing the last few years...)? You remember how at the end their "target" always had that "wtf just happened?!?!" look on his face? Same story, different era (and the tape may or may not self-destruct in five seconds...)
You cant say the universe is 986 billion years older then previously thought becuase it makes people think your using an exact science becuase you are using exact numbers. This is sensationalist science at its worst.
Well, they did say "...at least 986 billion years..." -- that gave them some "wiggle room" to say they weren't trying to be "precise"...
They were going to take the "ugh" out of "dough", but that left them with "Play Do", which most of the focus group pronounced "play doo". Ironically, the group subjects didn't mind playing with "play doo" until they brought out the "play doo pumper"...
You know, the LCD flat-panel that's apparently so bright that not only does it illuminate the face of the person using it but you can distinctly make out the characters they're typing (most of them are even so user-friendly they reverse-image what they're projecting so we don't have to watch the movie in a mirror to figure out what they're typing!!!)
I mean, if I can't get the tune out of my head, will I go to jail? (because I don't think 959 choruses of the Scooby Doo theme will make me a lot of friends on the cellblock; my wife's already threatened to shove me out of the car at 75mph...)
Me: "...doobie doo, where are you..."
Her: "You can stop that now."
Me: "...we need some help from you now... Yeah, I WISH"
Slashdot Mirror
Geez, if these eggheads ever stopped looking up for a few minutes and looked down at what they're standing on they could've saved themselves years of arguing...
Yet O.J. still hasn't been able to locate the "real" killers anywhere on any of the golf courses he's scoured; I guess he's not "very, very smart."
Yes, but only because the other night on Dateline they said if I had repairs made to my car I should ask for the old parts back (to make sure they actually did the work rather than just put some greasy fingerprints on my fender and hand me a bill...)
btw, anyone need some worn-out brake shoes and a muffler with a hole in it? Never mind, there's a flea market just down the road from my house...
...and I seem to recall someone mentioning that they (Sony) ought to be liable for the trouble its bug(s) caused...
Just an observation.
With dial-up there's almost no way the performance will fall short of your expectationss, because you expect it to suck (especially after using something, anything, better.)
I heard that's the scheme Microsoft originally used for the installation key for the Vista beta but had to abandon it after the third week of nobody being able to install the thing.
It's not helping that you guys are way down there at the "bottom" of the world, either. I think you should give some serious consideration to relocating a little closer to the population centers of the world; the shipping costs alone have to be just about killing you (besides, why would someone buy stale nucular fuel shipped from almost the South Pole when they can make their own fresh fuel right here at home?!)
In short, until you can overcome the transportation issues inherent in being about a zillion miles away from your customer base your best bet is to just export your ideas and let someone else implement them.
(in all seriousness: the "because they're very far away" answer is so far the ONLY way the wife and I have been able to convince our two three-year-olds we can't just pick up and go visit The Wiggles some weekend...though one of them actually just wants to go because on our globe Australia is pink.)
...and tell him how to get his own /. username so he can stop posting "AC"?
Hey, come on, didn't the lady say "it's turtles all the way down!"?
Gee, Mr. Balmer, I always suspected you lurked the /. message boards but never had much real evidence until now. Don't worry, we won't tell your kids.
I dunno, have you heard some of the crap the "artists" are recording these days? $14.95 for a disk full of it seems like a "fantastic amount of money" to me...
Hope not, 'cause right now it's... hold on, there's someone knocking on my door...
Uh, you do realize you posted that to Slashdot and not The American Spectator, don't you?
This brings to mind the Dilbert strip where the PHB is reminded by his secretary that he should NOT turn off his laptop while in-flight: "how else would they turn over control of the jet to you in an emergency?!"
True, and in that regard maybe "industry" will be encouraged to produce some useful things (perhaps on their own initiative...) that they've heretofore been reluctant to because of the implied threat of "injunction". Of course, that's exactly the point the GP was trying to make about "forced licensing" (slowly the lights are coming on...) and even though I assume a very strong "laissez-faire" position in most cases, I'm not sure I want the government being put in the position of enforcing someone's "I own it and I say nobody can do anything with it even if they want to pay me to do something with it" childishness; if an idea's useful to society and the patent holder wants to deny access to the idea simply because they can I cry "foul" on the patent holder because that goes against at least the spirit of the patent process in the first place; patents don't exist so someone can play "king of the hill" with a huge pile of IP, patents exist to keep someone else from profiting from an innovation at the expense of the innovator. In that regard, this decision is pure gold
[tinfoil hat]I just wonder what's going to happen to it when someone decides to 'forcibly license' the manufacture of those 200mpg fuel systems and free energy devices that "big oil" and the auto companies have been patent-squatting on for decades...
Either way, the headline could be interpreted that "to patent (or patient) trolls, the SCOTA's deal blows"
Actually, I guess it does; from their perspective it probably does "blow"...
There are many other possibilities, but overall they're all a little brighter from the inventor/innovator's point-of-view (heck, I might even dust off some of those old ideas I've been figuring someone'd been sitting on the patent for...and I'm a classic cynic!)
**I know, I know, this is assuming a fairness that in all probability won't actually show up in court...
I imagine such technology (we're now talking "bionics" here, not just biometric any more...) wouldn't come cheap; who's going to foot the bill for all these toe-drives? Bankers are notoriously tight (they'll fight tooth-and-toenail over the smallest of charges) and surely the bank's customers will feel their patronage is being trampled on just to pay for something that's "the banks' responsibility anyway..."
Not to mention, we don't know where the branch managers stand on all this. Whoops, I guess I did mention it. Duh. Open mouth, insert... hey, wait, I just had an idea for a nifty case-mod to go along with these toe-drives!)
Just curious (not as curious as either the polar or the grizzly, but still...)
No, but apparently a
Personally, I'm more aggravated at the colossal waste of taxpayer money this represents; it's not like the NSA couldn't just (with one of their exitsting see-you-through-the-tinfoil satellites) look at my circumference to see I've got Papa John's and the Chinese restaurant on speed-dial.
Answer: Pretty much as long as they wanted to.
Remember all those Mission: Impossible episodes (the "good" T.V. ones, not the "so-so" Cruise-missiles they've been releasing the last few years...)? You remember how at the end their "target" always had that "wtf just happened?!?!" look on his face? Same story, different era (and the tape may or may not self-destruct in five seconds...)
Well, they did say "... at least 986 billion years..." -- that gave them some "wiggle room" to say they weren't trying to be "precise"...
They were going to take the "ugh" out of "dough", but that left them with "Play Do ", which most of the focus group pronounced "play doo". Ironically, the group subjects didn't mind playing with "play doo" until they brought out the "play doo pumper"...
You know, the LCD flat-panel that's apparently so bright that not only does it illuminate the face of the person using it but you can distinctly make out the characters they're typing (most of them are even so user-friendly they reverse-image what they're projecting so we don't have to watch the movie in a mirror to figure out what they're typing!!!)