Slashdot Mirror


User: DMNT

DMNT's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
103
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 103

  1. Voltage on A Quick Look at Longhorn Build 4053 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I bought a nice, new, large case with 3 fans and a 320 V power-supply.

    And I thought that too low voltage would cause system crashes. I wonder if you live in Europe (and have 230 Volt sockets) or in the US (with 110 V).
    Anyway that's not as hazardous as doing the opposite, overvoltaging your power supply.

    Long live the SI!

  2. Drug patents vs. software patents on Amazon Sued for Patent Infringement · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Drug patents differ a lot from software patents.

    Drug patent holds one specific substance and the methods to produce that substance. Software patents are dangerous, because they hold a result.

    Could you agree that a medical company could hold a patent for curing impotence or AIDS? Of course not! Such a goal isn't patentable, and so should it be in software too. One painkiller isn't enough, there should be room for other substances too and therefore you can only patent your methods, not the result.

    Copyright laws are IMHO enough for protecting your code. No one can copy your work, but they are free to achieve the same results your software has, as long as they make their own work there. Imagine if someone had patented databases.

  3. Re:But it already exists on FBI Anti-Piracy Seal · · Score: 2, Interesting
    It's extended ASCII (8 bits).
    There is no "extended ASCII". IBM made a codepage for PC, that is ASCII-compatible (because of the first 128 characters are equal) but above that they made their own. As people outside English speaking countries know, there were different codepages shipped with MS-DOS. Those differ very much from what IBM-437 (default) was. One that was perhaps most used (excluding 437) was IBM-850. Characters like aoau still are a problem in file transfers between Linux and Windows. If they were part of ASCII, it wouldn't be so.