When we [primates] purchase a DVD or CD, we expect to be able to use it however we want...
Nowadays, I'd bet that few of us expect to be able to buy the latest DVD at Wal-Mart, and then with impunity to invite our friends and neighbors to a showing of it at $2/head.
So, although we're indeed instinctively protective of our "god-given" rights, what we recognize them to be can be modified by good logic and/or skillful pressure.
...for fines, they use a percentage of that persons earnings or total wealth...
...which raises the question of whether fines are supposed to be punitive damages from the offender, or compensatory damages for the offended (i.e., us).
(Whichever, it should be called 'punishment capital'.)
Good...for those of us who have the amazing innate ability to ignore ads.
Moreover, the oft-decried Flash (and other "rich-media") ads can be expected eventually to follow the lead of their TV brethren, which have become increasingly creative/entertaining in search of the viewer's willing interest. And the Internet's higher intellectual demands (it says here) should, as with TV's annual Super Bowl ad-fest, make new Internet ads something to look forward to.
So there's a new micro-ecology of predators (spammers) and prey (vulnerable machines).
Presumably the exploitation of these victim-lists will proliferate with all the automated efficiency that is the spammer's hallmark. At its logical extreme, there'll soon be multiple spammers descending simultaneously en masse onto each listed victim, which one way or another results in the victim being shut down (presumably).
So, might the predators eat themselves out of existence?
...it's people like this that give science fiction a bad name.
"People like this" are society's excluded. And they (we?) will always exist because society will always exclude. And they'll find places to gather that are, well, exclusive.
Among the current crop of such places, Planet Klingon's not so bad.
...come November, we [again may] have a president that...did not get a majority vote.
[...because] of the Electoral College system.
The electoral college is the well-meant Constitutional equivalent of "No state left behind". Unfortunately, it amplifies the consequences of larger-scale election fraud that (we're told) eVoting threatens to enable.
...a Microsoft marketing exercise masquerading as philanthropy...
...reminiscent of Apple first throwing computers into public schools decades ago, in its quest for world domination. The result was a world much more computer-savvy than dominated (...by Apple).
By the way, how often do corporate philanthropies NOT have marketing at their heart?
You gotta give the industry credit for its precision aiming, though.
Middle school is just the age where a kid absorbs unwritten rules (e.g., "don't be a squealer")...and, for better or worse, carries them forever as "conscience".
Participation-wise, games are active and movies are passive. Not merely de facto, but by explicit design. Two mutually orthogonal media.
The only reason they're occasionally, misbegottenly commingled is the built-in audience for whichever is the later rendering. And it's not reason enough, for my money.
The Doctrine of Laches relies on demonstrating negligence on the part of the patent holder, and is unlikely to be held against a new owner.
Here, the original owner was (deliberately) negligent, and thereby lost any right to sue. Thus, since they no longer have that right, they can't sell it to a new owner.
To me, this point seems incontrovertible...though I know too well that even the simplest logic doesn't always prevail in court.
...the original company wanted to leave the standard alone and not enforce the patent. The current owners don't...
If the original owners let the patent "leak" into the public domain (effectively, per the Doctrine of Laches), then such would be the condition of the patent as purchased by the new company. The patent's virginity wouldn't reinstate any more than Britney's.
IANAL, but... Doesn't the Uniform Commercial Code require that a product be fit for its intended purpose? Any perceptible mis-sync seems unacceptably short of boob-tube standards.
However, doesn't the same degree of delay obtain depending on whether you sit at the front or the back of a movie theater?
Right. Mount a marketing blitz to convince kids that their identity and self-worth depends on experiencing some new CD or movie, then legally and morally prosecute them for sharing the experience.
Or, to put it another way, "Your mother and I are going out. Don't put beans in your nose. The beans are in the cupboard."
...researchers in high-energy physics, astrophysics, [etc.] will require networks in the terabit-per-second range...
Trying to be cynical, I wonder how much of that new "requirement" is just using the Internet as a big, cheap backplane bus, i.e., for parallel processing.
Or maybe there's a newly crucial need for the conveniences of full-access telecommuting...in which case the petitioning physicists may be joined by, say, Citibank.
Could the success of eVoting lead to all-Internet voting?...and from there to legislation via frequent binding direct referenda, i.e., whereby you rather than your congressperson votes?
(Whether good or bad, such times would be anything but dull.)
Slashdot Mirror
Unless I'm missing something, neither MSN nor Hotmail comprises such a neighborhood.
Wasn't this strategy was first embodied in Lotus's early attempts to patent the "look and feel" of its software?
(A clever abuse of the patent system. Wonder if one could patent it.)
Nowadays, I'd bet that few of us expect to be able to buy the latest DVD at Wal-Mart, and then with impunity to invite our friends and neighbors to a showing of it at $2/head.
So, although we're indeed instinctively protective of our "god-given" rights, what we recognize them to be can be modified by good logic and/or skillful pressure.
(Whichever, it should be called 'punishment capital'.)
Moreover, the oft-decried Flash (and other "rich-media") ads can be expected eventually to follow the lead of their TV brethren, which have become increasingly creative/entertaining in search of the viewer's willing interest. And the Internet's higher intellectual demands (it says here) should, as with TV's annual Super Bowl ad-fest, make new Internet ads something to look forward to.
So, this isn't for developing or implementing a new algorithm.
However, it might be a step closer to fully automating the re-implementation of existing ones ...which is inherently a rote task to begin with.
Presumably the exploitation of these victim-lists will proliferate with all the automated efficiency that is the spammer's hallmark. At its logical extreme, there'll soon be multiple spammers descending simultaneously en masse onto each listed victim, which one way or another results in the victim being shut down (presumably).
So, might the predators eat themselves out of existence?
(I know. I've been watching too much sci-fi.)
"People like this" are society's excluded. And they (we?) will always exist because society will always exclude. And they'll find places to gather that are, well, exclusive.
Among the current crop of such places, Planet Klingon's not so bad.
[...because] of the Electoral College system.
The electoral college is the well-meant Constitutional equivalent of "No state left behind". Unfortunately, it amplifies the consequences of larger-scale election fraud that (we're told) eVoting threatens to enable.
Can't say as how I'm aware of that.
By the way, how often do corporate philanthropies NOT have marketing at their heart?
So, you'll need a mouse that not only cools your palm but also shaves it.
Middle school is just the age where a kid absorbs unwritten rules (e.g., "don't be a squealer") ...and, for better or worse, carries them forever as "conscience".
The only reason they're occasionally, misbegottenly commingled is the built-in audience for whichever is the later rendering. And it's not reason enough, for my money.
Here, the original owner was (deliberately) negligent, and thereby lost any right to sue. Thus, since they no longer have that right, they can't sell it to a new owner.
To me, this point seems incontrovertible ...though I know too well that even the simplest logic doesn't always prevail in court.
If the original owners let the patent "leak" into the public domain (effectively, per the Doctrine of Laches), then such would be the condition of the patent as purchased by the new company. The patent's virginity wouldn't reinstate any more than Britney's.
(But IANAL, dammit.)
However, doesn't the same degree of delay obtain depending on whether you sit at the front or the back of a movie theater?
From it, I conclude that StarTrek should have said, "...to boldly go where no man has boldly gone before."
Beam me up.
Well, StarTrek did begin with TV's most flagrant split infinitive. ("...to boldly go...")
Or, to put it another way, "Your mother and I are going out. Don't put beans in your nose. The beans are in the cupboard."
Maybe not, since "protectionism" is ill-regarded nowadays. But it is an important step on the career path to "Interplanetary Tariff Collector".
Trying to be cynical, I wonder how much of that new "requirement" is just using the Internet as a big, cheap backplane bus, i.e., for parallel processing.
Or maybe there's a newly crucial need for the conveniences of full-access telecommuting ...in which case the petitioning physicists may be joined by, say, Citibank.
(Whether good or bad, such times would be anything but dull.)
How many broadband users switch to dial-up?
Among my circle of friends and data-points, the answer is: Zilch.