Think of it this way, then. Let us say we have a musical instrument designer. He designs a guitar that is 25% smaller and lighter than any current design, and produces a more perfect tone than anything invented to date. That guitar is patentable.
On the other hand, if I purchase one of his guitars, and play music on it, that music is not patentable. It is copyrightable.
There is no different in computing. The processors, and power supplies, and fans, and all of those things, are tangible items. If you come up with some brilliant new way of making a microprocessor, that makes it 3 times faster at the same power consumption of anything out there now, you can patent that. If you come up with a new fan that can move twice as much air with the same footprint, that is patentable.
On the other hand, software is the music played on this tangible instrument. It is not something physical, it is abstract. It is not patentable. It is copyrightable.
Business methods are really neither. A corporation can copyright their corporate website, but they should be able neither to patent nor copyright ideas like one-click or a shopping cart. Their specific implementation may be copyrighted, but that wouldn't stop anyone else implementing the same concept on their own.
I'm not sure at this point the distinction is more than semantic, but perhaps the statement should be made without pronouns for clarity. You are correct that none of the individuals who currently make up the government are morally responsible for what occurred (unless, of course, they were involved in the initial incident, which given the amount of time that has passed is unlikely).
However, the British government, as an entity, was responsible. Of course there are no organizations which take actions without a group of people, that would be nonsensical. However, it is generally accepted that the entity can be responsible for unacceptable actions even if its membership changes.
Perhaps a better way of phrasing it would be "The British government apologizes for its actions in the matter of the persecution of Alan Turing for his sexual orientation. The government now realizes that such actions are not acceptable, and will not take or condone such actions in the future."
I think you mistake organizations for the people who make them up.
Let us say a corporation takes an illegal action. Everyone within it who was responsible for that resigns and is subsequently replaced. That corporation is still on the hook as an organization, even though none of the individuals within it was responsible.
An apology to Alan Turing would be, in effect, an official statement that "We realize we were wrong to persecute someone because he was gay. We have learned that lesson and will not do it again." It's perfectly appropriate for the British government to make that statement, because the British government did the persecuting in the first place. It doesn't matter if its members have changed.
Let's take a hypothetical this way, then. What would you imagine would happen if every software patent out there were rigorously enforced, without exception? Do you really believe things wouldn't slow to a grinding halt if this were to be the case?
The same is not true of pharmaceutical patents and the like. Things continue on there, even though the patents are by and large quite strictly enforced. The same is true of manufacturing processes and the like. That's why patents were intended to cover tangible, physical processes, not abstract ones. Abstract concepts are the domain of copyright, which is much more limited in scope.
It is essential for the future of independent digital journalism that a fair price can be charged for news to people who value it.
Does anyone else find it ironic for Rupert Murdoch to be talking about "independent" journalism? Does he even know what that means?
I wonder how "independent" his organizations would be if they uncovered dirt on News Corp.? Somehow, I'm guessing they'd be quite quickly reminded exactly who their boss is.
The BBC, and its concept, might really not be a bad idea. It doesn't have to worry about making a profit, so it's free to report on actual news rather than sensationalism. If given the choice between the BBC or News Corp. going away, well, been nice knowing you, Mr. Murdoch.
I could reprise all of First Amendment doctrine for you, but I won't. It's not illegal, and it shouldn't be illegal. Speech that you object to must be countered with speech, not suppression of the speech that you object to.
Freedom of speech is not absolute. If I tell you I'll pay you to commit a murder, and you agree to do it, we're guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, even if neither the killing nor the payment actually happens before we get caught and all we did was talk.
The same principle can certainly be applied to speech on behalf of organizations. There are most certainly openness laws, and many of them concern corporate and government behavior. You may be free to speak, but you're not necessarily free to do it in secret. Nor, in many cases, are you free to deliberately collude with other companies for purposes such as fixing prices. And these laws have been, by and large, challenged on First Amendment (and other) grounds, and upheld.
Currently, Comcast still does, and only in a slightly less deceptive manner.
How long can I stay on line before I have to log out?
As long as you like. You'll never be timed out, and you never have to log out! That's one of the many benefits of being a Comcast High-Speed Internet subscriber. Your time spent online is completely unlimited, with no additional charges.
That's really true only if your connection is idle for the vast majority of the time you're using it. If you're actually, you know, using the connection for a good deal of that time, it's not unlimited at all.
and that is not a bad thing. Study after study has shown that by charging for parking you build in some the economic externalities into the cost of driving. think of it as a way to discourage congestion. it gives more people the opportunity to park downtown if people are discouraged from lingering. Sure you could charge more for gas or have fees to enter the city, or any number of things but this is easy to implement and has fewer side effects (as raising gas would). By making it difficult you pay with nuisance and wasted time rather than cash, which is a less regressive form of taxation.
Exactly, and that's where the "other ideas" come in: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO DRIVE. Ride a bike, take public transit, walk, combinations of any of the above. I don't drive my car to downtown Denver, because parking is expensive and a pain in the ass. But that doesn't mean I can't go there.
"Net Netrality" is, technically, treating all customers and providers neutrally - that is to say, not giving someone's packets preferential treatment over someone else's. It has NOTHING to do with protocols but being agnostic over where a packet comes from or goes to.
You mean, like this type of behavior described in TFS?
All protocols but HTTP are capped to 1/3 speed, and within the HTTP realm some Web sites and services that use lots of upstream bandwidth are capped as well.
This violates net neutrality because HTTP is being favored over FTP, P2P, and a whole host of other protocols.
No, it doesn't. Net Neutrality deals with the origin and destination, not the protocol. An example of violating Net Neutrality principals would be an ISP blocking access to YouTube unless an additional $5/month service fee is charged.
Which, if you RTFS, you'd see they are:
All protocols but HTTP are capped to 1/3 speed, and within the HTTP realm some Web sites and services that use lots of upstream bandwidth are capped as well. (emphasis added)
No,/. (and most net-savvy user websites) gets pissy when they go after the 1% because after all, they agreed to X Mbps, they should get to use that 100% of the time.
Whether that argument is right or wrong, the two situations combined (the one in this article and the one I'm laying out in this post) equate to a catch 22 for the ISP. The ISP's only remaining choice is to drastically lower promised speeds, but that's a marketing disaster, and really a technical one as well, since most people do sometimes use the top speeds, but don't do so regularly - makes them happy to have it available when needed though.
Actually, I get pissy because I purchased a connection advertised as an "unlimited" connection at a certain speed. "Unlimited", as in, "without limit". When they then turn around and say "There's a limit", but still advertise the service as "unlimited", their advertising is not truthful.
If ISPs want to sell limited internet connections, they have every right to do that, but they should advertise them as such.
I also don't buy the "We build our infrastructure for anticipated usage..." bit. If this "1%" of users routinely exists, you factor them into your anticipated usage when deciding how much you need to build. Then, you build enough capacity for actual anticipated usage. You don't just ignore those users, hope they go away, and then be shocked and claim to need to throttle when your capacity doesn't meet your demand.
So why doesn't that precedent apply to sports scores?
It does, and I'm not sure why you think it wouldn't. The score a sporting event resulted in is a simple fact and is uncopyrightable. The layout it's presented in could possibly copyrightable if it is sufficiently creative, but to simply say that the score of the X-Y game was 21-10 is a simple statement of fact and cannot be copyrighted. The same applies to sports statistics and the like. You can copyright the fancy flowchart presentation you lay it out in, but you can't copyright the fact that Smith hit 56 home runs last season and struck out 29 times.
What? 2/3 of my property taxes are going to educate someone elses kids.. AND THATS IT. The REST of the 1/3 goes to NOT only roads, but any other city projects as well (parks, zoning, police, etc etc).
Sorry, most of the funding DOES come from costs associated with owning and operating a car.
And car traffic is much more damaging to the roadway than bicycle traffic, so what exactly is unfair about bicyclists paying only a small share of road maintenance costs when they're also only causing a small amount of the need for it? You also seem to be presuming that bicyclists don't own cars, and that's not often true. I have a car, and I pay the same registration for it anyone else does, but I very rarely drive. Given this, I imagine that the ratio of the amount of money I pay for road maintenance to the amount of wear I cause is better than most of those who drive full time, even though I'm paying fewer absolute dollars since I don't often buy gas.
I have front and rear lights and reflectors on my bike, and they are always on at night. If you're riding at night without lighting, it's the same as driving a car at night without the headlights on-you apparently have a death wish.
If you're paying attention, and have sufficiently good vision to be granted a driver's license, why do you need to swerve or brake suddenly? Unless you're in some very rough or curvy terrain, you should be able to see what's in front of you in far enough time to slow down without slamming on the brakes, or change lanes in plenty of time to get past safely.
On the other hand, if you tend not to pay attention while you drive, well, you're going to be frequently swerving and braking hard, and everyone else better hope you're good at it. But that's not really anyone else's fault. Watch the road.
As to "proper pacing", the speed limit is a maximum, not a minimum or a guarantee, and the "proper pacing" is "no faster than the guy in front of you", not something else. Though in the interest of courtesy, cyclists certainly should stay far enough over to let drivers pass when feasible. In turn, drivers should only pass when they can do so without bringing the mirror a foot from someone's head.
I imagine the world will not be a worse place for people being a little more patient or driving a little bit slower.
100% agree on cyclists following the road rules, and on the ones who do not. Cyclists can absolutely be idiots, just the same as drivers can. I guess the common denominator there is "Some people are idiots", and that's true regardless of how they choose transportation.
Maybe the people riding bikes shouldn't be jackasses who ride 2-3 feet out into the road from the curb/sidewalk. Where I live (Madison CT, suburban town), all the bikers are fucking retards and ride on the white line or over it, even if there's 2-4ft of space from the line to the curb. If you can't handle riding within the same 6-12inch track (and no, there is not shittons of debris, maybe pebbles n shit here and there which any bike will NOT wipeout on) and instead need 2-4feet of lanespace for your bike...you shouldn't be biking on public roads cause you're a fucking idiot.
Yes, I know i'm gonna get hit with troll/flamebait mods, but I'm sick fo the self righteous bikers who cry about getting honked/yelled at when they're being utter morons literally getting in the way of a vehicle that is going 2x+ as fast as them, and weighs easily 5x-10x+ more than them.
You do the same thing with a bicycle as you would with any other vehicle, especially on a multilane road: You slow down until you can safely pass it by changing to a different lane, not by attempting to squeeze by in the same lane. And I don't know what difference it makes if your vehicle is heavier than another. When you are operating a vehicle, you are responsible to avoid collisions with other vehicles, be it a semi truck or a bicycle.
On roads with a single lane each way, I don't know of any cyclist who won't move over a bit to let you pass. Nor do these roads generally have heavy enough traffic that it's an issue for very long.
Generally, the shoulder (at least here in Denver, maybe not in Madison) does have quite a bit of debris. A lot of that is from motorists, some of whom do not seem to know of a brilliant invention known as a "garbage can", or mistake the roadside for that particular invention. It also tends to be very broken up. It is much safer to ride on a stable, well-paved surface. This also increases the cyclist's visibility, improving safety for both the cyclist and drivers.
Or in other words, slow down, lay off the horn, and put your middle finger down. If a five second delay is going to ruin things for you, leave earlier. Traffic lights can cause the same. What is the mindset among drivers that anything that causes them to briefly need to slow down is the end of the world and should be reacted to in a way that most adults wouldn't dream of behaving most of the time?
I thought you were kidding until I saw the link, even then I didn't really think it would link to a patent application for that...
In any case, though, I'm sorry to inform Halliburton that there's a bit of prior art on patent trolling. Though I'd almost hope they get it, if for no other reason than to see the irony of a patent troll getting sued for patent infringement.
agree. That, and if we were to have some sort of a committee to decide who could sell what to whom overseas, (beyond existing limits to say, military technology) we'd never be able to get anything sold overseas.
Is it really up to the public to decide who I can do business with overseas? I think not.
You damn well bet it's up to the public, if they so decide it is. Who exactly do you think grants corporate charters? Santa Claus?
We, as the public, have a shameful record of actually expecting, much less enforcing, that corporations be expected to behave in an ethical and appropriate manner. However, we do have every right to demand it if we'd get off our asses and do it. We give them the charter, we grant the limited liability, and usually, we pay a substantial portion of that nine-digit bonus the CEO got last year too. Sometimes, many members of the public are even part owners of the company via stock purchase. So yes, the public has say over corporate behavior, in a much more general sense than just overseas conduct.
Now only if we would start to use that on a regular basis. I can dream, can't I?
Good lord. The end of AMD started about 3 years ago. Where have you been?
This has got to be at least the middle of the end.
I heard that about three years ago, and I've been right here, using an AMD Athlon XP that worked well for many years after it was built, and still serves nicely as a server, while using my aging Athlon T-Bird as a fileserver, again with no issues other than one power supply replacement a couple years ago. I'm posting this on the AMD Phenom-based system I built about a month ago, and I couldn't be happier with it. Especially since the price I paid vs. the performance I got is absolutely amazing. I've built many AMD systems for others, and not had a single complaint about it yet. I will of course build you an Intel-based system if that's what you want, but it's going to cost you more, because the parts cost me more.
I've always personally used AMD systems, and have never found them lacking. Your mileage may vary, of course, but if nothing else it's a good thing there are two competitive forces in this market. It forces them both to innovate at a much faster rate than either one would if they were the only game in town.
Of course, I've always been happy with Nvidia as well, but if they decide not to support what I use, I'll just have to head across the street and check out their competitor who does. That tends to happen when you choose to engage in turf wars rather than providing your customers what they want.
If I tried to make a living selling something, only to find that everyone can make their own easily enough
There's a big difference between making their own and cribbing someone else's.
Realistically, not so much. And here, we do have people making their own, even if it's an identical copy. If I copy your post to my computer, will you or Slashdot be missing it? Or will I simply have a local copy in addition to the one on Slashdot, and, if you wanted to, the one you could save locally?
Again, just because mine is identical to yours doesn't mean I didn't make it myself. Now, of course, to claim I came up with the idea when I didn't is plagiarism, which is fraudulent and a whole different beast. On the other hand, if I say "This is a copy I made, but it was Hognoxious's idea originally", no such issue. Most everything we do cribs from someone in some way. Even the English language, which we're conversing in, is overwhelmingly cribbed from other languages.
A friend of mine is currently in the process of custom-fabricating an identical replica of a race car. That doesn't mean he took the original, just because his will be the same, inside and out. It will still be his car once it's done.
The copying here is certainly easier than making your own car parts, but it's no different for that. If I could make such a replica car in a matter of minutes, I'm not taking anything from anyone. It might annoy the manufacturer that I'm not paying them instead, but well, if the ability to do that was widespread and easy, the days of car-as-commodity would probably be over. That's not true, of course, because cars are genuinely scarce commodities.
That is not true of copies of anything digitizable. They are non-scarce and extremely easy for anyone to replicate, so attempting to sell them as a commodity without any value-added proposition is foolish and a poor business model, that only works at all because of outdated laws that are ignored more widely by the day. You would need to add something that provides enough value to the customer to justify purchasing rather than copying, and even then, you'd better make it very, very cheap to compete with free. Think bottled water.
If I tried to make a living selling something, only to find that everyone can make their own easily enough thank you very much, I guess I would find a different line of work rather than asking them to be banned from doing so if theirs was like mine. On the other hand, if I made it for enjoyment, or developed a business model that allows me to make money off service rather than product such as custom design (or, yes, touring), I'd keep on doing it. That's called innovation, and technology often obsoletes old models and requiring new ones be thought up.
This is such a time. The concept of copy-as-commodity is obsolete, and currently is only being propped up through outdated laws that seem to most of us to be nonsensical given this new reality. If you want to make your living selling copies, you better figure a way to add value for the consumer that can't be easily digitized, or change your model to a service rather than a project. Or innovate in some other way. But don't run to the government to keep us from fully utilizing our cars to maintain your buggy whip business. That will only cause you to be resented and ignored, and rightfully so.
Homeopathic and Naturalpath are historically based from Eastern Medicine - wherein "cures" and "treatments" take the form of their natural state: ie roots, dried/ground plants, etc. Many Western pharmaceuticals have their origins from actual Homeopathic cures. The difference between pharmaceuticals and homeopathic medicine is that pharmaceutical companies try to distill what the "active" ingredient in the cure is - and turn it into a pill with bulking fillers. The problem with pharmaceuticals is it destroys the synergy of the natural plants other ingredients.
That does not change my point in the slightest. If it really works this well, subject it to the same testing given to standard pharmaceuticals. If you're correct about how effective this "synergy" is, you'll blow the modern pharmaceuticals right out of the water.
It's not my guess that this would be the actual result of the testing, but by all means, put it to genuine rigorous testing to answer the question. Otherwise, going on about "synergy" and the rest of it are just obfuscation. If it's that good, prove it. Don't spout feel good but empty phrases about it.
If you want to convince us that homeopathic medicines work, than by all means, put one of them through a rigorous, controlled clinical trial. (Not one anecdotal bit that may or may not be true and if it is may or may not be coincidental.) Tell one group they're getting the homeopathic "medicine" and give that to them. Tell the other group that's what they're getting and give them a placebo. Compare the results. That's how accurate results are obtained about the effectiveness of an actual drug against the placebo effect.
If you find significantly better results in the side that took the "medicine" than in those who took the placebo, and those results prove to be repeatable, you may have yourself a case. But until someone is confident enough in the method to submit it to rigorous, controlled testing, rather than "It worked this time! Really! Don't be so closed minded!", it's just quackery preying on the gullible.
When proponents of something are quick to tout its benefits and quick to ridicule its critics, but even quicker to duck rigorous testing that would show for sure if it really works or not, I become very closed minded very quickly. I've never taken Zicam, so apparently I can still smell bullshit just fine. If you're that confident in it, put it up for FDA approval.
Slashdot Mirror
Think of it this way, then. Let us say we have a musical instrument designer. He designs a guitar that is 25% smaller and lighter than any current design, and produces a more perfect tone than anything invented to date. That guitar is patentable.
On the other hand, if I purchase one of his guitars, and play music on it, that music is not patentable. It is copyrightable.
There is no different in computing. The processors, and power supplies, and fans, and all of those things, are tangible items. If you come up with some brilliant new way of making a microprocessor, that makes it 3 times faster at the same power consumption of anything out there now, you can patent that. If you come up with a new fan that can move twice as much air with the same footprint, that is patentable.
On the other hand, software is the music played on this tangible instrument. It is not something physical, it is abstract. It is not patentable. It is copyrightable.
Business methods are really neither. A corporation can copyright their corporate website, but they should be able neither to patent nor copyright ideas like one-click or a shopping cart. Their specific implementation may be copyrighted, but that wouldn't stop anyone else implementing the same concept on their own.
I'm not sure at this point the distinction is more than semantic, but perhaps the statement should be made without pronouns for clarity. You are correct that none of the individuals who currently make up the government are morally responsible for what occurred (unless, of course, they were involved in the initial incident, which given the amount of time that has passed is unlikely).
However, the British government, as an entity, was responsible. Of course there are no organizations which take actions without a group of people, that would be nonsensical. However, it is generally accepted that the entity can be responsible for unacceptable actions even if its membership changes.
Perhaps a better way of phrasing it would be "The British government apologizes for its actions in the matter of the persecution of Alan Turing for his sexual orientation. The government now realizes that such actions are not acceptable, and will not take or condone such actions in the future."
I think you mistake organizations for the people who make them up.
Let us say a corporation takes an illegal action. Everyone within it who was responsible for that resigns and is subsequently replaced. That corporation is still on the hook as an organization, even though none of the individuals within it was responsible.
An apology to Alan Turing would be, in effect, an official statement that "We realize we were wrong to persecute someone because he was gay. We have learned that lesson and will not do it again." It's perfectly appropriate for the British government to make that statement, because the British government did the persecuting in the first place. It doesn't matter if its members have changed.
Let's take a hypothetical this way, then. What would you imagine would happen if every software patent out there were rigorously enforced, without exception? Do you really believe things wouldn't slow to a grinding halt if this were to be the case?
The same is not true of pharmaceutical patents and the like. Things continue on there, even though the patents are by and large quite strictly enforced. The same is true of manufacturing processes and the like. That's why patents were intended to cover tangible, physical processes, not abstract ones. Abstract concepts are the domain of copyright, which is much more limited in scope.
From TFS:
Does anyone else find it ironic for Rupert Murdoch to be talking about "independent" journalism? Does he even know what that means?
I wonder how "independent" his organizations would be if they uncovered dirt on News Corp.? Somehow, I'm guessing they'd be quite quickly reminded exactly who their boss is.
The BBC, and its concept, might really not be a bad idea. It doesn't have to worry about making a profit, so it's free to report on actual news rather than sensationalism. If given the choice between the BBC or News Corp. going away, well, been nice knowing you, Mr. Murdoch.
I could reprise all of First Amendment doctrine for you, but I won't. It's not illegal, and it shouldn't be illegal. Speech that you object to must be countered with speech, not suppression of the speech that you object to.
Freedom of speech is not absolute. If I tell you I'll pay you to commit a murder, and you agree to do it, we're guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, even if neither the killing nor the payment actually happens before we get caught and all we did was talk.
The same principle can certainly be applied to speech on behalf of organizations. There are most certainly openness laws, and many of them concern corporate and government behavior. You may be free to speak, but you're not necessarily free to do it in secret. Nor, in many cases, are you free to deliberately collude with other companies for purposes such as fixing prices. And these laws have been, by and large, challenged on First Amendment (and other) grounds, and upheld.
Currently, Comcast still does, and only in a slightly less deceptive manner.
That's really true only if your connection is idle for the vast majority of the time you're using it. If you're actually, you know, using the connection for a good deal of that time, it's not unlimited at all.
and that is not a bad thing. Study after study has shown that by charging for parking you build in some the economic externalities into the cost of driving. think of it as a way to discourage congestion. it gives more people the opportunity to park downtown if people are discouraged from lingering. Sure you could charge more for gas or have fees to enter the city, or any number of things but this is easy to implement and has fewer side effects (as raising gas would). By making it difficult you pay with nuisance and wasted time rather than cash, which is a less regressive form of taxation.
Exactly, and that's where the "other ideas" come in: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO DRIVE. Ride a bike, take public transit, walk, combinations of any of the above. I don't drive my car to downtown Denver, because parking is expensive and a pain in the ass. But that doesn't mean I can't go there.
You mean, like this type of behavior described in TFS?
This violates net neutrality because HTTP is being favored over FTP, P2P, and a whole host of other protocols.
No, it doesn't. Net Neutrality deals with the origin and destination, not the protocol. An example of violating Net Neutrality principals would be an ISP blocking access to YouTube unless an additional $5/month service fee is charged.
Which, if you RTFS, you'd see they are:
No, /. (and most net-savvy user websites) gets pissy when they go after the 1% because after all, they agreed to X Mbps, they should get to use that 100% of the time.
Whether that argument is right or wrong, the two situations combined (the one in this article and the one I'm laying out in this post) equate to a catch 22 for the ISP. The ISP's only remaining choice is to drastically lower promised speeds, but that's a marketing disaster, and really a technical one as well, since most people do sometimes use the top speeds, but don't do so regularly - makes them happy to have it available when needed though.
Actually, I get pissy because I purchased a connection advertised as an "unlimited" connection at a certain speed. "Unlimited", as in, "without limit". When they then turn around and say "There's a limit", but still advertise the service as "unlimited", their advertising is not truthful.
If ISPs want to sell limited internet connections, they have every right to do that, but they should advertise them as such.
I also don't buy the "We build our infrastructure for anticipated usage..." bit. If this "1%" of users routinely exists, you factor them into your anticipated usage when deciding how much you need to build. Then, you build enough capacity for actual anticipated usage. You don't just ignore those users, hope they go away, and then be shocked and claim to need to throttle when your capacity doesn't meet your demand.
So why doesn't that precedent apply to sports scores?
It does, and I'm not sure why you think it wouldn't. The score a sporting event resulted in is a simple fact and is uncopyrightable. The layout it's presented in could possibly copyrightable if it is sufficiently creative, but to simply say that the score of the X-Y game was 21-10 is a simple statement of fact and cannot be copyrighted. The same applies to sports statistics and the like. You can copyright the fancy flowchart presentation you lay it out in, but you can't copyright the fact that Smith hit 56 home runs last season and struck out 29 times.
property taxes
What? 2/3 of my property taxes are going to educate someone elses kids.. AND THATS IT. The REST of the 1/3 goes to NOT only roads, but any other city projects as well (parks, zoning, police, etc etc).
Sorry, most of the funding DOES come from costs associated with owning and operating a car.
And car traffic is much more damaging to the roadway than bicycle traffic, so what exactly is unfair about bicyclists paying only a small share of road maintenance costs when they're also only causing a small amount of the need for it? You also seem to be presuming that bicyclists don't own cars, and that's not often true. I have a car, and I pay the same registration for it anyone else does, but I very rarely drive. Given this, I imagine that the ratio of the amount of money I pay for road maintenance to the amount of wear I cause is better than most of those who drive full time, even though I'm paying fewer absolute dollars since I don't often buy gas.
I have front and rear lights and reflectors on my bike, and they are always on at night. If you're riding at night without lighting, it's the same as driving a car at night without the headlights on-you apparently have a death wish.
If you're paying attention, and have sufficiently good vision to be granted a driver's license, why do you need to swerve or brake suddenly? Unless you're in some very rough or curvy terrain, you should be able to see what's in front of you in far enough time to slow down without slamming on the brakes, or change lanes in plenty of time to get past safely.
On the other hand, if you tend not to pay attention while you drive, well, you're going to be frequently swerving and braking hard, and everyone else better hope you're good at it. But that's not really anyone else's fault. Watch the road.
As to "proper pacing", the speed limit is a maximum, not a minimum or a guarantee, and the "proper pacing" is "no faster than the guy in front of you", not something else. Though in the interest of courtesy, cyclists certainly should stay far enough over to let drivers pass when feasible. In turn, drivers should only pass when they can do so without bringing the mirror a foot from someone's head.
I imagine the world will not be a worse place for people being a little more patient or driving a little bit slower.
100% agree on cyclists following the road rules, and on the ones who do not. Cyclists can absolutely be idiots, just the same as drivers can. I guess the common denominator there is "Some people are idiots", and that's true regardless of how they choose transportation.
Maybe the people riding bikes shouldn't be jackasses who ride 2-3 feet out into the road from the curb/sidewalk. Where I live (Madison CT, suburban town), all the bikers are fucking retards and ride on the white line or over it, even if there's 2-4ft of space from the line to the curb. If you can't handle riding within the same 6-12inch track (and no, there is not shittons of debris, maybe pebbles n shit here and there which any bike will NOT wipeout on) and instead need 2-4feet of lanespace for your bike...you shouldn't be biking on public roads cause you're a fucking idiot. Yes, I know i'm gonna get hit with troll/flamebait mods, but I'm sick fo the self righteous bikers who cry about getting honked/yelled at when they're being utter morons literally getting in the way of a vehicle that is going 2x+ as fast as them, and weighs easily 5x-10x+ more than them.
You do the same thing with a bicycle as you would with any other vehicle, especially on a multilane road: You slow down until you can safely pass it by changing to a different lane, not by attempting to squeeze by in the same lane. And I don't know what difference it makes if your vehicle is heavier than another. When you are operating a vehicle, you are responsible to avoid collisions with other vehicles, be it a semi truck or a bicycle.
On roads with a single lane each way, I don't know of any cyclist who won't move over a bit to let you pass. Nor do these roads generally have heavy enough traffic that it's an issue for very long.
Generally, the shoulder (at least here in Denver, maybe not in Madison) does have quite a bit of debris. A lot of that is from motorists, some of whom do not seem to know of a brilliant invention known as a "garbage can", or mistake the roadside for that particular invention. It also tends to be very broken up. It is much safer to ride on a stable, well-paved surface. This also increases the cyclist's visibility, improving safety for both the cyclist and drivers.
Or in other words, slow down, lay off the horn, and put your middle finger down. If a five second delay is going to ruin things for you, leave earlier. Traffic lights can cause the same. What is the mindset among drivers that anything that causes them to briefly need to slow down is the end of the world and should be reacted to in a way that most adults wouldn't dream of behaving most of the time?
I thought you were kidding until I saw the link, even then I didn't really think it would link to a patent application for that...
In any case, though, I'm sorry to inform Halliburton that there's a bit of prior art on patent trolling. Though I'd almost hope they get it, if for no other reason than to see the irony of a patent troll getting sued for patent infringement.
agree. That, and if we were to have some sort of a committee to decide who could sell what to whom overseas, (beyond existing limits to say, military technology) we'd never be able to get anything sold overseas.
Is it really up to the public to decide who I can do business with overseas? I think not.
You damn well bet it's up to the public, if they so decide it is. Who exactly do you think grants corporate charters? Santa Claus?
We, as the public, have a shameful record of actually expecting, much less enforcing, that corporations be expected to behave in an ethical and appropriate manner. However, we do have every right to demand it if we'd get off our asses and do it. We give them the charter, we grant the limited liability, and usually, we pay a substantial portion of that nine-digit bonus the CEO got last year too. Sometimes, many members of the public are even part owners of the company via stock purchase. So yes, the public has say over corporate behavior, in a much more general sense than just overseas conduct.
Now only if we would start to use that on a regular basis. I can dream, can't I?
Sorry, but I'll trust my own experience over your comment. But as you say, nice try.
Good lord. The end of AMD started about 3 years ago. Where have you been? This has got to be at least the middle of the end.
I heard that about three years ago, and I've been right here, using an AMD Athlon XP that worked well for many years after it was built, and still serves nicely as a server, while using my aging Athlon T-Bird as a fileserver, again with no issues other than one power supply replacement a couple years ago. I'm posting this on the AMD Phenom-based system I built about a month ago, and I couldn't be happier with it. Especially since the price I paid vs. the performance I got is absolutely amazing. I've built many AMD systems for others, and not had a single complaint about it yet. I will of course build you an Intel-based system if that's what you want, but it's going to cost you more, because the parts cost me more.
I've always personally used AMD systems, and have never found them lacking. Your mileage may vary, of course, but if nothing else it's a good thing there are two competitive forces in this market. It forces them both to innovate at a much faster rate than either one would if they were the only game in town.
Of course, I've always been happy with Nvidia as well, but if they decide not to support what I use, I'll just have to head across the street and check out their competitor who does. That tends to happen when you choose to engage in turf wars rather than providing your customers what they want.
There's a big difference between making their own and cribbing someone else's.
Realistically, not so much. And here, we do have people making their own, even if it's an identical copy. If I copy your post to my computer, will you or Slashdot be missing it? Or will I simply have a local copy in addition to the one on Slashdot, and, if you wanted to, the one you could save locally?
Again, just because mine is identical to yours doesn't mean I didn't make it myself. Now, of course, to claim I came up with the idea when I didn't is plagiarism, which is fraudulent and a whole different beast. On the other hand, if I say "This is a copy I made, but it was Hognoxious's idea originally", no such issue. Most everything we do cribs from someone in some way. Even the English language, which we're conversing in, is overwhelmingly cribbed from other languages.
A friend of mine is currently in the process of custom-fabricating an identical replica of a race car. That doesn't mean he took the original, just because his will be the same, inside and out. It will still be his car once it's done.
The copying here is certainly easier than making your own car parts, but it's no different for that. If I could make such a replica car in a matter of minutes, I'm not taking anything from anyone. It might annoy the manufacturer that I'm not paying them instead, but well, if the ability to do that was widespread and easy, the days of car-as-commodity would probably be over. That's not true, of course, because cars are genuinely scarce commodities.
That is not true of copies of anything digitizable. They are non-scarce and extremely easy for anyone to replicate, so attempting to sell them as a commodity without any value-added proposition is foolish and a poor business model, that only works at all because of outdated laws that are ignored more widely by the day. You would need to add something that provides enough value to the customer to justify purchasing rather than copying, and even then, you'd better make it very, very cheap to compete with free. Think bottled water.
If I tried to make a living selling something, only to find that everyone can make their own easily enough thank you very much, I guess I would find a different line of work rather than asking them to be banned from doing so if theirs was like mine. On the other hand, if I made it for enjoyment, or developed a business model that allows me to make money off service rather than product such as custom design (or, yes, touring), I'd keep on doing it. That's called innovation, and technology often obsoletes old models and requiring new ones be thought up.
This is such a time. The concept of copy-as-commodity is obsolete, and currently is only being propped up through outdated laws that seem to most of us to be nonsensical given this new reality. If you want to make your living selling copies, you better figure a way to add value for the consumer that can't be easily digitized, or change your model to a service rather than a project. Or innovate in some other way. But don't run to the government to keep us from fully utilizing our cars to maintain your buggy whip business. That will only cause you to be resented and ignored, and rightfully so.
Homeopathic and Naturalpath are historically based from Eastern Medicine - wherein "cures" and "treatments" take the form of their natural state: ie roots, dried/ground plants, etc. Many Western pharmaceuticals have their origins from actual Homeopathic cures. The difference between pharmaceuticals and homeopathic medicine is that pharmaceutical companies try to distill what the "active" ingredient in the cure is - and turn it into a pill with bulking fillers. The problem with pharmaceuticals is it destroys the synergy of the natural plants other ingredients.
That does not change my point in the slightest. If it really works this well, subject it to the same testing given to standard pharmaceuticals. If you're correct about how effective this "synergy" is, you'll blow the modern pharmaceuticals right out of the water.
It's not my guess that this would be the actual result of the testing, but by all means, put it to genuine rigorous testing to answer the question. Otherwise, going on about "synergy" and the rest of it are just obfuscation. If it's that good, prove it. Don't spout feel good but empty phrases about it.
If you want to convince us that homeopathic medicines work, than by all means, put one of them through a rigorous, controlled clinical trial. (Not one anecdotal bit that may or may not be true and if it is may or may not be coincidental.) Tell one group they're getting the homeopathic "medicine" and give that to them. Tell the other group that's what they're getting and give them a placebo. Compare the results. That's how accurate results are obtained about the effectiveness of an actual drug against the placebo effect.
If you find significantly better results in the side that took the "medicine" than in those who took the placebo, and those results prove to be repeatable, you may have yourself a case. But until someone is confident enough in the method to submit it to rigorous, controlled testing, rather than "It worked this time! Really! Don't be so closed minded!", it's just quackery preying on the gullible.
When proponents of something are quick to tout its benefits and quick to ridicule its critics, but even quicker to duck rigorous testing that would show for sure if it really works or not, I become very closed minded very quickly. I've never taken Zicam, so apparently I can still smell bullshit just fine. If you're that confident in it, put it up for FDA approval.