They'd also do well by dropping the one and two dollar bills, replacing them with coins; the currency has devalued so much, it's not worth keeping the low value notes as notes. You could also make a case for ditching the penny, to boot.
But hey, what would I know...
The government would *love* to be able to discontinue those bills, and replace them with coins. But to date, there have been *two* attempts to replace the $1 bill with a $1 coin, and both have failed miserably because people refused to use them.
There are something like 3 million of them in circulation, and new ones are still being printed periodically. But many people, like yourself, have never actually encountered one.
(I've heard anecdotes of people trying to spend one being accused of counterfeiting, because the cashier had never seen one and assumed that it was a fraud).
The only way to make currency impossible to counterfeit is to not have fiat currency in the first place, which means the people would choose something real to be money, I am talking about gold, and you can't really counterfeit that.
Just out of curiosity, exactly what "offense" did he commit that you think is worth even a year's probabation with a suspended sentence.
He used MIT's computer system to accomplish what it was designed to do. All he did was do a lot more of it than the designers were expecting.
There mght have been a civil copyright issue here, but none of the copyright holders appeared interested in pursuing such a case.
And there definitely was a "using more than your fair share of shared resources" issue, which is not a crime (unless you're a federal prosecutor with an axe to grind).
To me, "common sense" dictates that MIT should have pulled him aside, and informed him that his massive downloads were not acceptable, and if they didn't stop, he would be officially banned from using MIT's network in the future. Once banned from the network, if he continued his activities he would *then* actually be guilty of a crime worthy of prosecution.
Except that bacteria don't adapt to a "strategy". They adapt to the conditions at exist at the moment, with no consideration of the future implications of that adaptation. Because, you know, bacteria aren't intelligent.
I've thought for a long time that the application fees should be increased 50%, with the 50% being rebated in the case of any patent that is issued, but retained for patents that are denied.
No - what needs to be increased (in some cases dramatically) are the patent *maintenance* fees. At present, the patent office has 3 fee schedules, depending on the size of the patent-holding entitiy, but the *highest* of the three only costs the patent holder about $13,000 over the life of the patent. Not even pocket change for a major corporation.
Substantially higher fees would tend to reduce the current tendency of companies to maintain large numbers of "trivial" patents (think "pinch to zoom" as an example). Also forcing "Non-practicing entities" into the highest fee schedule would make it much more expensive for trolls to maintain a large portfolio of trivial or dubious patents.
I think, and I'm not as smart as I once was, so this an opinion, not a statement of fact, that a geosynchronous satellite would be eclipsed by the Earth for a significant percentage of the time. There's probably an orbit that maximizes energy collection, but I don't have the slightest idea what it looks like.
Not all that significant. Remember that the Earth's equator is inclined about 23 degrees relative to the plane of the ecliptic. Because of this tilt, combined with the distance the satelleite is from the Earth, a solar power satellite will experience *no* eclipses from the Earth for about two thirds of the year, and some period of eclipse during the remaining third. But even at the worst point in the cycle, the eclipse period is only about 70 minutes per day.
Net result is that a good old geosynchronous orbit is good enough for a solar power satellite (and greatly reduces the headaches of keeping the power beam targeted at the receiver).
Possibly but I have to think at least some of these billionaires would say hold on, and buy a half hour block of TV that evening to have a chat with America.
Why? Given the cost of 30 minutes of prime time, it'd probably be cheaper to just buy a few senators, and then have them tell the spooks to back off...
i wanted to scan the opinion, but there is none. and the decision says nonprecedential.
not a lawyer but it seems this decision cannot set a legal precedent for future cases
There was no precedent to be set here. Basically, the appeal was Alcatel trying to get its favorite patent un-invalidated, and the the judges looked at the case and are basically telling Alcatel "There's nothing wrong with the lower court's decisions - it stays invalidated. Now go away and quit bothering us".
If you can't patent software because it is mathematics, then you can't patent genes because they are software.
But one of the things that the law defines as patentable is a novel "configuration of matter". A truly original gene would easily qualify under this condition. While the gene is only useful because it is software for a biological system, if it represents a novel configuration of matter to encode that software, then it should be patentable.
I'm less sure when the case involves taking genes found in nature, and splicing them onto other plants (such as the "Roundup Ready" gene). In this case, while there is unquestionably a lot of work involved in the splicing, I'm not at all sure that the resulting configuration of matter would be truly novel enough to warrant a patent.
It absolutely might. My wife being a realtor, we've had home warranties over the years and they almost always pay off
If that were true. the companies selling those home warranties would be bankrupt. It is mathematically impossible for almost all customers to get more money out of their home warranties than they put.
Not entirely true. You aren't factoring in the negotiating power that those insurance companies have with the contractors providing the service. While you may pay $500 for a given repair, the insurance company may, through a negotiated discount, be only paying $300. So there exists a range where both you *and* the insurance company benefit from the deal.
The *contractor* for the work may be one who is losing out, though not necessarily - if the contract allows the contractor to fill 75% of his available time with paying work instead of 50%, the lower rate may still result in a net gain for him.
Sadly, with wet-AMD, there is no actual effective treatment today. There are some drugs known to slow the advance, of this disease, but not reverse it.
I beg to differ - the drugs currently on the market can stop the progression cold in many cases, not just slow it down. But the extent of permanent vision loss depends on how early the disease is detected and treatment started - wait too long, and scar tissue forms on the retina, which *is* irreversible.
But these are "treatments", not "cures" - once diagnosed with such a disease, you will be a "customer for life" of some retina specialist. And the only drug that is actually FDA approved for this condition (Lucentis) sells for about $2000 per dose. Fortunately, there is a closely related drug (Avastin) that is quite effective as well, and while it's not actually approved for AMD (it was developed and approved to treat colon cancer), most retina specialists have no problem using it "off label" for AMD patients.
What is this some Michael Bay "the signal that hacked your network" shit? How could they detect a passive receiver?
Because the receiver ain't quite as "passive" as you think. Google for "local oscillator" for an example.
Digital systems tend to generate noise on predictable frequencies as well - if a device has a chip that's clocked at a given frequency, then somewhere in that device is an oscillator used to generate that clock (though it may or may not be working at that particular frequency).
The only truly passive receiver is one that is completely shielded to prevent it from radiating any of this noise. But you *have* to have a gap in the shielding in order for the incoming signal to be received. So building an undetectable receiver is not quite as easy as you might think.
There should be some distinction between a work that has potential monetary worth 75 years after its creation, and something that has no worth 5 years after creation.
Not only no, but Hell No!
If you create *any* sort of differentiation, then it will be exploited so that the big corporations' work gets the max protection, and stuff by little guys gets the minimum, regardless of any artistic merit or monetary value. It won't start out that way, of course, but over time corporations *will* find a way to corrupt the system for their benefit.
Copyright would be just fine if the term was limited to something sane. After all, it exists for the sole purpose of encouraging the creation of new works. Rudyard Kipling won't be releasing any new works (unless he comes back as a zombie, that is), so there is no reason whatsoever to have any protection on his original works.
The sole determinant for whether a work should be in copyright is whether it will benefit the original creator for it to remain in copyright. Not a corporation that bought the rights. Not the creator's children (or grandchildren, or great-great-great-grandchildren). Just the original creator.
I don't see how returning something to protection for a limited time conflicts with the copyright clause, perhaps you could elaborate.
Perhaps not, but try explaining how doing so "promotes the Progress of Science and useful Arts". Do you really think that the creator of something that has actually expired out of copyright into the public domain is going to start creating new works if his (very) old stuff is returned to copyright? In reality, even before the most recent extension of copyright terms it was more than likely that the original creator was long dead before the copyright expired.
Unfortunately, what will happen is that if this point is even brought up, the Supreme Court will simply rule that this is a type of commercial regulation, and hence allowed under the all-powerful Commerce Clause.
All it says is that the President has to sign the bill for it to become law (except where Congress gets the 2/3s to override a Presidential veto). Since autopens have for a long time been seen as legitimate signatures, I doubt very much that there is any question as to the constitutionality of this particular signature.
But why use the Autopen. US Law allows all kinds of documents to be signed via a digital signature, which doesn't require the signer to be in any particular place. And this type of signature has already been used to sign a bill into law - Bill Clinton signed the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act using a digital signature.
So why didn't President Obama follow this precedent, signing via digital signature?
The President should be required to digitally sign the text of the bill, and then, if someone wanted a dead-tree signed version, the Autopen could be used, after the text of the digital version and the paper version had been compared to insure they are the same.
I know this whole question is just a bunch of legal hair-splitting. And I would be quite happy if this technicality got that abomination of a law thrown out. I'm not holding my breath on it, though, as certain elements of our government have become quite fond of the powers that were granted to them via the Patriot Act, and won't give them up without a fight.
But it isn't "Mr." Obama; it's Mr. President or President Obama.
You could also use The President or POTUS.
Saying "Mr." Obama isn't just disrespecting him, it's disrespecting The Office of the President. It's tacky.
I believe the accepted journalistic standard is "President Obama" on the first mention in an article, but "Mr. Obama" in the rest of the article. But there's no hard-and-fast rule - just "Mr. Obama" is itself an indicator of respect (at least more so than just referring to him as "Obama").
Also consider that this is the United States - disrespecting our elected officials is part of that whole "freedom of speech" concept...
Who's "they"? Do you mean Stalin (a Georgian)? Or maybe you are talking about the (ethnic Ukrainian) communist functionaries who sent Stalin fake statistics to try to convince him that his economic policies were working well and that there was no starvation in Ukraine?
While there may have been general starvation as a result of Stalin's failed policies, there were special policies put in place that applied *only* to areas where Ukrainians were dominant. Such as the law that if a collective farm failed to meet its quota, agents of the government would move in and seize 15 times that farm's quota, leaving that farm with no food at all.
Exact numbers are hard to come by, but the best estimates are that around 8 million people died in that famine, about 5 million of whom just happened to be ethnic Ukrainians. So others *were* dying. Just not as many.
First off, that van is explicitly designed for this purpose. So it's assumed it has the necessary medical equipment to perform the organ harvesting. In TFA, it explictly states that one of the reasons for the vans is so they don't *have* to have specialized medical facilities in the prisons.
Second, all the drugs used have regular medical uses, and have hopefully been subject to reasonable testing. I'd be really surprised if the doctor(s) who planned for these vans would have failed to consider possible organ damage from the drugs.
Finally, the prevalence of HIV and Hepatitis is quite true in US prisons, but not necessarily in other countries.
But you do have a good point. What about ASCAP and BMI who do regularly sue bars and other venues that play music without paying royalties? They do not require copyright assignment.
Because they are not concerned with copyright infringement. A public performance of a song is *not* copyright infringement.
Under copyright law, you do not have to negotiate an agreement for royalties in order to use a work in a "public performance". Instead, the law specifies a "statutory royalty" that is due whenever a work is used in a public performance, with the rate of this royalty being set by the government (the Copyright Royalty Board). You may, if you wish, try to negotiate with them for a contractual royalty rate different from the statutory rate, but unless you have done so, you are obligated to pay the statutory rates.
ASCAP and BMI are just agents responsible for collecting the portion of those statutory royalties owed to the songwriters/publishers of songs used in public performances. They aren't suing because you infringed copyright (you didn't) - they are suing because in using the work in a public performance you've incurred statutory royalties, which they are (in theory) authorized to collect and fairly distribute it.
(The portion of the statutory royalties due to the artists/labels is collected by an organization called Sound Exchange).
In summary - to sue over copyright infringement, you need to be the holder of the rights to the work in question. But to sue over the statutory royalties for a public performance, you only need to be the agent authorized to collect those royalties.
You forgot another consequence, when the feds poisoned alcohol to make people think it was more dangerous, and killed its own citizens as a result: http://www.slate.com/id/2245188/
Which they tried again in the 1970's by spraying marijuana fields in Mexico with paraquat. Which failed miserably since paraquat sprayed pot isn't really all that poisonous.
The simple fact is that if shenanigans like this are required to convince people the stuff is dangerous, then it's not dangerous enough to justify federal regulation.
Well, they do say that English rap^H^H^H forcibly takes new words from foreign languages. Although this word probably liked it.
Well, given the poor language's upbringing, it's not really all that surprising. After all, it was the bastard offspring of Anglo-Saxon and Norman French (which has a rather sordid history all its own, involving Latin, Gallic, Goth, Vandal, Frankish and Norse).
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They'd also do well by dropping the one and two dollar bills, replacing them with coins; the currency has devalued so much, it's not worth keeping the low value notes as notes. You could also make a case for ditching the penny, to boot.
But hey, what would I know ...
The government would *love* to be able to discontinue those bills, and replace them with coins. But to date, there have been *two* attempts to replace the $1 bill with a $1 coin, and both have failed miserably because people refused to use them.
According to our friend Wikipedia, new ones have been printed as recently as last year...
There are something like 3 million of them in circulation, and new ones are still being printed periodically. But many people, like yourself, have never actually encountered one.
(I've heard anecdotes of people trying to spend one being accused of counterfeiting, because the cashier had never seen one and assumed that it was a fraud).
The only way to make currency impossible to counterfeit is to not have fiat currency in the first place, which means the people would choose something real to be money, I am talking about gold, and you can't really counterfeit that.
Care to place a wager on that?
Just out of curiosity, exactly what "offense" did he commit that you think is worth even a year's probabation with a suspended sentence.
He used MIT's computer system to accomplish what it was designed to do. All he did was do a lot more of it than the designers were expecting.
There mght have been a civil copyright issue here, but none of the copyright holders appeared interested in pursuing such a case.
And there definitely was a "using more than your fair share of shared resources" issue, which is not a crime (unless you're a federal prosecutor with an axe to grind).
To me, "common sense" dictates that MIT should have pulled him aside, and informed him that his massive downloads were not acceptable, and if they didn't stop, he would be officially banned from using MIT's network in the future. Once banned from the network, if he continued his activities he would *then* actually be guilty of a crime worthy of prosecution.
Except that bacteria don't adapt to a "strategy". They adapt to the conditions at exist at the moment, with no consideration of the future implications of that adaptation. Because, you know, bacteria aren't intelligent.
I've thought for a long time that the application fees should be increased 50%, with the 50% being rebated in the case of any patent that is issued, but retained for patents that are denied.
No - what needs to be increased (in some cases dramatically) are the patent *maintenance* fees. At present, the patent office has 3 fee schedules, depending on the size of the patent-holding entitiy, but the *highest* of the three only costs the patent holder about $13,000 over the life of the patent. Not even pocket change for a major corporation.
Substantially higher fees would tend to reduce the current tendency of companies to maintain large numbers of "trivial" patents (think "pinch to zoom" as an example). Also forcing "Non-practicing entities" into the highest fee schedule would make it much more expensive for trolls to maintain a large portfolio of trivial or dubious patents.
You are supposed to open the friggin box, remove the contents, and just eat the contents for christ sake!
But then you lose half the nutritional value!
I think, and I'm not as smart as I once was, so this an opinion, not a statement of fact, that a geosynchronous satellite would be eclipsed by the Earth for a significant percentage of the time. There's probably an orbit that maximizes energy collection, but I don't have the slightest idea what it looks like.
Not all that significant. Remember that the Earth's equator is inclined about 23 degrees relative to the plane of the ecliptic. Because of this tilt, combined with the distance the satelleite is from the Earth, a solar power satellite will experience *no* eclipses from the Earth for about two thirds of the year, and some period of eclipse during the remaining third. But even at the worst point in the cycle, the eclipse period is only about 70 minutes per day.
Net result is that a good old geosynchronous orbit is good enough for a solar power satellite (and greatly reduces the headaches of keeping the power beam targeted at the receiver).
Possibly but I have to think at least some of these billionaires would say hold on, and buy a half hour block of TV that evening to have a chat with America.
Why? Given the cost of 30 minutes of prime time, it'd probably be cheaper to just buy a few senators, and then have them tell the spooks to back off...
i wanted to scan the opinion, but there is none. and the decision says nonprecedential.
not a lawyer but it seems this decision cannot set a legal precedent for future cases
There was no precedent to be set here. Basically, the appeal was Alcatel trying to get its favorite patent un-invalidated, and the the judges looked at the case and are basically telling Alcatel "There's nothing wrong with the lower court's decisions - it stays invalidated. Now go away and quit bothering us".
If you can't patent software because it is mathematics, then you can't patent genes because they are software.
But one of the things that the law defines as patentable is a novel "configuration of matter". A truly original gene would easily qualify under this condition. While the gene is only useful because it is software for a biological system, if it represents a novel configuration of matter to encode that software, then it should be patentable.
I'm less sure when the case involves taking genes found in nature, and splicing them onto other plants (such as the "Roundup Ready" gene). In this case, while there is unquestionably a lot of work involved in the splicing, I'm not at all sure that the resulting configuration of matter would be truly novel enough to warrant a patent.
It absolutely might. My wife being a realtor, we've had home warranties over the years and they almost always pay off
If that were true. the companies selling those home warranties would be bankrupt. It is mathematically impossible for almost all customers to get more money out of their home warranties than they put.
Not entirely true. You aren't factoring in the negotiating power that those insurance companies have with the contractors providing the service. While you may pay $500 for a given repair, the insurance company may, through a negotiated discount, be only paying $300. So there exists a range where both you *and* the insurance company benefit from the deal.
The *contractor* for the work may be one who is losing out, though not necessarily - if the contract allows the contractor to fill 75% of his available time with paying work instead of 50%, the lower rate may still result in a net gain for him.
Sadly, with wet-AMD, there is no actual effective treatment today. There are some drugs known to slow the advance, of this disease, but not reverse it.
I beg to differ - the drugs currently on the market can stop the progression cold in many cases, not just slow it down. But the extent of permanent vision loss depends on how early the disease is detected and treatment started - wait too long, and scar tissue forms on the retina, which *is* irreversible.
But these are "treatments", not "cures" - once diagnosed with such a disease, you will be a "customer for life" of some retina specialist. And the only drug that is actually FDA approved for this condition (Lucentis) sells for about $2000 per dose. Fortunately, there is a closely related drug (Avastin) that is quite effective as well, and while it's not actually approved for AMD (it was developed and approved to treat colon cancer), most retina specialists have no problem using it "off label" for AMD patients.
What is this some Michael Bay "the signal that hacked your network" shit? How could they detect a passive receiver?
Because the receiver ain't quite as "passive" as you think. Google for "local oscillator" for an example.
Digital systems tend to generate noise on predictable frequencies as well - if a device has a chip that's clocked at a given frequency, then somewhere in that device is an oscillator used to generate that clock (though it may or may not be working at that particular frequency).
The only truly passive receiver is one that is completely shielded to prevent it from radiating any of this noise. But you *have* to have a gap in the shielding in order for the incoming signal to be received. So building an undetectable receiver is not quite as easy as you might think.
...and you can guarantee "Mr. Fiddlestick" will turn up with a knife in him in an alley somewhere with "no suspicion of foul play".
No - he'll just commit suicide. By shooting himself in the back of the head. Twice.
There should be some distinction between a work that has potential monetary worth 75 years after its creation, and something that has no worth 5 years after creation.
Not only no, but Hell No!
If you create *any* sort of differentiation, then it will be exploited so that the big corporations' work gets the max protection, and stuff by little guys gets the minimum, regardless of any artistic merit or monetary value. It won't start out that way, of course, but over time corporations *will* find a way to corrupt the system for their benefit.
Copyright would be just fine if the term was limited to something sane. After all, it exists for the sole purpose of encouraging the creation of new works. Rudyard Kipling won't be releasing any new works (unless he comes back as a zombie, that is), so there is no reason whatsoever to have any protection on his original works.
The sole determinant for whether a work should be in copyright is whether it will benefit the original creator for it to remain in copyright. Not a corporation that bought the rights. Not the creator's children (or grandchildren, or great-great-great-grandchildren). Just the original creator.
I don't see how returning something to protection for a limited time conflicts with the copyright clause, perhaps you could elaborate.
Perhaps not, but try explaining how doing so "promotes the Progress of Science and useful Arts". Do you really think that the creator of something that has actually expired out of copyright into the public domain is going to start creating new works if his (very) old stuff is returned to copyright? In reality, even before the most recent extension of copyright terms it was more than likely that the original creator was long dead before the copyright expired.
Unfortunately, what will happen is that if this point is even brought up, the Supreme Court will simply rule that this is a type of commercial regulation, and hence allowed under the all-powerful Commerce Clause.
All it says is that the President has to sign the bill for it to become law (except where Congress gets the 2/3s to override a Presidential veto). Since autopens have for a long time been seen as legitimate signatures, I doubt very much that there is any question as to the constitutionality of this particular signature.
But why use the Autopen. US Law allows all kinds of documents to be signed via a digital signature, which doesn't require the signer to be in any particular place. And this type of signature has already been used to sign a bill into law - Bill Clinton signed the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act using a digital signature.
So why didn't President Obama follow this precedent, signing via digital signature?
The President should be required to digitally sign the text of the bill, and then, if someone wanted a dead-tree signed version, the Autopen could be used, after the text of the digital version and the paper version had been compared to insure they are the same.
I know this whole question is just a bunch of legal hair-splitting. And I would be quite happy if this technicality got that abomination of a law thrown out. I'm not holding my breath on it, though, as certain elements of our government have become quite fond of the powers that were granted to them via the Patriot Act, and won't give them up without a fight.
Look, I'm not into the whole "political" thing.
But it isn't "Mr." Obama; it's Mr. President or President Obama.
You could also use The President or POTUS.
Saying "Mr." Obama isn't just disrespecting him, it's disrespecting The Office of the President. It's tacky.
I believe the accepted journalistic standard is "President Obama" on the first mention in an article, but "Mr. Obama" in the rest of the article. But there's no hard-and-fast rule - just "Mr. Obama" is itself an indicator of respect (at least more so than just referring to him as "Obama").
Also consider that this is the United States - disrespecting our elected officials is part of that whole "freedom of speech" concept...
Who's "they"? Do you mean Stalin (a Georgian)? Or maybe you are talking about the (ethnic Ukrainian) communist functionaries who sent Stalin fake statistics to try to convince him that his economic policies were working well and that there was no starvation in Ukraine?
While there may have been general starvation as a result of Stalin's failed policies, there were special policies put in place that applied *only* to areas where Ukrainians were dominant. Such as the law that if a collective farm failed to meet its quota, agents of the government would move in and seize 15 times that farm's quota, leaving that farm with no food at all.
Exact numbers are hard to come by, but the best estimates are that around 8 million people died in that famine, about 5 million of whom just happened to be ethnic Ukrainians. So others *were* dying. Just not as many.
Sorry, but that quote doesn't seem right.
First off, that van is explicitly designed for this purpose. So it's assumed it has the necessary medical equipment to perform the organ harvesting. In TFA, it explictly states that one of the reasons for the vans is so they don't *have* to have specialized medical facilities in the prisons.
Second, all the drugs used have regular medical uses, and have hopefully been subject to reasonable testing. I'd be really surprised if the doctor(s) who planned for these vans would have failed to consider possible organ damage from the drugs.
Finally, the prevalence of HIV and Hepatitis is quite true in US prisons, but not necessarily in other countries.
But you do have a good point. What about ASCAP and BMI who do regularly sue bars and other venues that play music without paying royalties? They do not require copyright assignment.
Because they are not concerned with copyright infringement. A public performance of a song is *not* copyright infringement.
Under copyright law, you do not have to negotiate an agreement for royalties in order to use a work in a "public performance". Instead, the law specifies a "statutory royalty" that is due whenever a work is used in a public performance, with the rate of this royalty being set by the government (the Copyright Royalty Board). You may, if you wish, try to negotiate with them for a contractual royalty rate different from the statutory rate, but unless you have done so, you are obligated to pay the statutory rates.
ASCAP and BMI are just agents responsible for collecting the portion of those statutory royalties owed to the songwriters/publishers of songs used in public performances. They aren't suing because you infringed copyright (you didn't) - they are suing because in using the work in a public performance you've incurred statutory royalties, which they are (in theory) authorized to collect and fairly distribute it.
(The portion of the statutory royalties due to the artists/labels is collected by an organization called Sound Exchange).
In summary - to sue over copyright infringement, you need to be the holder of the rights to the work in question. But to sue over the statutory royalties for a public performance, you only need to be the agent authorized to collect those royalties.
You forgot another consequence, when the feds poisoned alcohol to make people think it was more dangerous, and killed its own citizens as a result: http://www.slate.com/id/2245188/
Which they tried again in the 1970's by spraying marijuana fields in Mexico with paraquat. Which failed miserably since paraquat sprayed pot isn't really all that poisonous.
The simple fact is that if shenanigans like this are required to convince people the stuff is dangerous, then it's not dangerous enough to justify federal regulation.
Well, they do say that English rap^H^H^H forcibly takes new words from foreign languages. Although this word probably liked it.
Well, given the poor language's upbringing, it's not really all that surprising. After all, it was the bastard offspring of Anglo-Saxon and Norman French (which has a rather sordid history all its own, involving Latin, Gallic, Goth, Vandal, Frankish and Norse).