They'll be built in Shenzen or Venezuela or Czechoslovakia or maybe someplace where China has DEEP ties.
They US government (via some CIA (or other deep-cover/black-ops (so black that gravity and light and even THOUGHTS can't escape) org) front company will buy them in bulk, or encourage their sales into the US market (since the average user user/civilian/serf/subject is non-geek and won't even be SUSPICIOUS about such matters...).
Then, the US will have not only backbone, but capillary access to the Internets'* CNS.
But, China and others will have access to the circulatory system...
But, then China and the US will keep root-canaling each other... Hmmm, maybe China will not follow through on that multi-beelions "deal" with msoft. Would Linux be a better platform to be on, from a security standpoint if a PCI-based root detector can't detect a virus or unholy payload?
Just last week I was (re)wondering whether or not all our provided/purchased cable-modems are under a national security order to be "backdoorable". Hell, the telcos have been in bed with the government for maybe all of their existence, at least the past 20 years, I suppose.
Then, I started pondering... "Hmmm... if Slashdot itself is a government DARPA project....to weed out targettable, unloyal, unsavor engineers and geeks..."
I can't STAND books with boogers, hair, and other organic (food, spit) shit deposited, smeared, even in the tiniest amount. If I could SEE it, I would fork over some extra money for a new book. If the book cost over $50, I would not take the class.
In fact, hi-lites distract the hell out of me. I prefer to do my own hiliting and make my own "dogears". More, I haven't got a single resalable book. About 99% of ALL my books (even magazines), whether for school or pleasure/personal enrichment have enormous markups, underlining/hilites, dogears and such. That makes my books "PERSONAL", which is something current technology doesn't seem to make plain with digital content that you can trust to mark up and REMAIN as you wish it.
I can only imagine the peril I'd be in today. Find the LAST copy of the required book. It's smudged with some dubious "stuff" that has "texture" or "terrain" to it. The books cost too damned much, and sometimes I (conspiracy theory here) feel the instructors or professors and the book industry work to jack up the prices and force on students certain books already too pricey to begin with.
Much of the material could be generated in PDF these days, and if the publishers WANT to use DRM self-destruct code, then set it up so they students have to log in each time they attend class and sign in using a random/one-time password scheme. They just better price it right, so it's commensurate with "losing the book" after the semester's over. This would save a LOT of people from lugging and disposing (non-recycling, I'm thinking of here) of mostly reusable books.
OTOH, there will always be the risk that "revisionist historians" might update the books at login-time to exploit "current events", which makes the books susceptible to becoming marketing tools. But, if the marketing defrays the cost of the book....
idea. That should kill that philips screw driver job.
But, I can see the hardware coming with a EULA and the cable provider transmitting or mailing subscribers a service update notification saying that if you plug in or buy and plug in the hardware, you agree to the new TOS starting on the next page... it'll probably tell you you agree to renounce "channel surfing"...
I wonder what this will do to TIVO stock, now that Slash the other day asked about TIVO being a takeover target. Maybe Philips will license this tech to TIVO or tell TIVO they can watch themselves die after a certain number of subscribers cancel service...
Hmmm... this patent could be really nasty and painful if Philips actually puts it into use. I hope they just SIT on the patent to prevent others from actually using it, but I suspect they have plans to wring money from the advertisers more than from TIVO, since it seems to me the advertisers have more momentum to PUSH ads than TIVO has to remove the ad insertion... Maybe that's a half-baked thought, but....
"There is a 100 mpg carburetor patent that an oil company is sitting on. Dozens of batteries patents are sat on by automotives, oil and petrochemical industries."
If that is true, then everyone in government and industry who KNEW and didn't FORCE that technology onto the street should be shot, hung, or emasuculated (if male)... Assholes...
THAT kind of technology could have prevented wars in the Middle East!
THIS is EXACTLY the kind of shit that makes me say that if a UFO crashed in my presence and I were the first to be able to do something about it, NOOOOO **one** government would get it first. I don't care WHERE I would be when it crashed. That, is, assuming SAC/NORAD didn't know of or track it. I mean, jeez... technology that can clean the environment, take power BACK from people who play games with their ability to control cartels, and the very assholes who'd try to decapitate those same cartel leaders... ALL of them are in bed, costing the average citizen...
I hope China finds a way to duplicate this patent and just uses it without regard for the holders of it. THAT kind of patent will enable China to put more roads and cars in WITHOUT the US bitching about "China's gonna suck down the world's oil reserves..."
It's probably the file type and the METAdata that Google's appliance is using. If it can build a sophisticated set of indexes and cross-reference material across departments a company and disciplines in an industry, then that would go a looong way toward making a lot of things possible.
Even the "vaunted US Navy" has multiple descriptive terms for ONE piece of equipment, and in the supply and maintenance lines, one engineering department on ONE ship of the SAME CLASS might have separate terms for a faulty circuit, bearing, motor.... But, I read somewhere that an indexing tools such as "Google" could go through the mishmash of records, build a base index, and then allow the humans to sanitize the stuff to make a template for future records and reports. That step done, the hard part is in the rear view mirror. If Google was the entity behind cleaning up the USN's messy records, then they can probably start doing it for the civilian industry, too.
I think it's mostly about reading tags or metadata, compiling an INdex on CONtexts, and making sure that future reports and data entry demand and enforce formatted entry of information the way a "smart" contemporary database ought to. But, companies like ms and others who thrive on non-structured data products encourage people to learn and rely on bad habits... like using (yech) spreadsheets and word processors for data repositories when ONLY a database built FOR data manipulation should be used.
I guess these PHBs adn their devs will be awake late "igniting the late night combustible petroleum products"... trying to rectify the security through obscurity thingy...
I guess Google will have dem agog... and is going to ROYALLY piss off ms... especially if this appliance has any hardware (cough, cough, LINUX) parts to it...
Well, I guess consumer computing will just remain an "electrifying" experience.
But, can't they make "paint-on" CPUs? I mean, the CPUs and the interconnects are like hand and wrist, right? Well, can they make them of similar "DNA" and part? Or, are they trying not to "kill off" some sacred part of the CPU industry?
Good will and bad vibes... what a juxt... well, if they messed up the IP value, their ass-sets will be on fire... I guess Dr. Evil will write off Preparations A-G... and use H and Tucks and some camphor...
does have it, and Romans appear in the definition. I guess Symantec is going to feel the IRS is the new rear-reaming Romans.
--
But, makes you wonder... who piqued the IRS' attention. A "slip" of the tongue in Ireland? I guess some dragons will be getting slain... Imagine the IRS auditors salivating and rubbing their hands in glee (to Austin Powers.. with a little bit of Ren/Stimpy voice thrown in (Or, if you like, Simon Bar Sinister...)): "You owe US.. **O**N**E** BEEL-YUN dollars...(YEE--hee--haah--haah-haah-haah...)"
I bet the Symantec eyes POPPED out at that board meeting.
Moral of the story about rampant M&A activity: Don't lie about the assets value, OR, just don't make the purchase/acquisition...
"How a patent like that got granted in the first place is absolutly beyond me."
Probably because is absolutely beyond your ability to pay for it? (I'm assuming you can't cough up the cash to get a patent AND the investors AND the manufacturing and the rest of the entourage that keeps many people from filing...)
Well, this could be a GOOD thing if it cuts down on the gun-related murder rate in the US. But, if such an arrest were legal in Amsterdam and upheld by the World Court, then the next step would be go go after vacationing land mine developers.
Next up, lobbyists FOR and legislators OF bad domestic law and poor domestic public policy... Catch it at 10PM
It's interesting that some of the most obvious things about boats and small craft can be "registered and protected". **Seems** like the LibCong is/could be headed the same way the USPTO...
Seems that if you design and sell or display a "boat" SOMEbody can sue you for even common, prior-art stuff. Somewhat to its credit, though, the boating industry doesn't want to see a series of expensive and industry-crippling lawsuits rising up. But, at the same time, I find it a bit disturbing that many of the boats depicted are not unique, special, innovative, or the like.
"Visit the remnants of Detroit motor city works, Ye Mighty, and despair"
I just the other day read in the Onion "Detroit Sold for Scrap".
"Detroit, a former industrial metropolis in southeastern Michigan with a population of just under 1 million, was sold at auction Tuesday to bulky scrap dealers and smelting foundries across the United States....
Once dismantled and processed, Detroit is expected to yield nearly 14 million tons of steel, 2.85 million tons of aluminum, and approximately 837,000 tons of copper.... According to scrap dealers, Detroit is an aging city in fair-to-poor condition, with "substantial wear and tear." It also bears the marks of extensive fire and rust damage, and it may not comply with current U.S. safety and emission standards...."
There's more, but you get the idea.
We need a way to stem the tide of bullshit and odor emanating from the USPTO and the complement of turd-nugget companies and individuals abusing the beleaguered system. Also, it's not helping that IBM and msoft and others are filing somewhere around or over 2,000 patents a year. The filing threshold should DEMAND that if this thing will be TECH and not a physical product, and if current software or emulation tools will nullify it, then you can earn money from it, BUT IT WON'T BE PATENTABLE, in the interest of cutting out all these g*ddamned lawsuits. But, I suppose such changes (above and below) would somehow cripple to good 'ole US economy and free enterprise...
But, the US patent system is irrefutably f*cked mainly because it seems you have to be big or have a warchest to fight an infringer. Worse, you can be litigated to DEATH by some a*hole troll or warped people and businesses who failed to IMPLEMENT, not just FILE an idea/product design. And, while you can get a provisional patent filing, it isn't much protection other than getting you a date. Moreover, since just about anything tech is full of legalese an bullshit/jumbo self-congratulatory mumbo jumbo, it's virtually impossible to make heads or tales just by reading the text. I sometimes am aghast and amazed that a patent was granted. some of the stuff I read made me want to destroy furniture and go puke in a corner. It's appalling how the USPTO sucks up to money in a LOT of ways.
They USPTO should require and provide "faster and easier", not just their current searchability (I think Lotus Approach the database has better user-friendly searchability) AND pictures you can actually **USE**. Some of the pictures I saw were USELESS, and hard to download onto my Linux-based system because of some bullshit file/graphics plug-in they REQUIRE. I suppose they don't know about PDF, or they're in bed with the industry to make it hard for small people to QUICKLY dig thru the database to find something.
The dry, boring, overly-broad language I've perused in many patent filings is worthy of the most scathing and condemnatory language that can be continually devised, and the USPTO needs to be overhauled. If $5,000,000 can't resolve their problem, they should lose their status as a government enterprise and be replaced with a better database and the staff replaced by business-averse, non-bullshitting people who DEMAND the product work, be in the market at least 6 months, and not be based on an overly-broad patent.
I'm getting a damned headache just THINKING of this problem. Little people like myself have ideas (not on my computer) but face the filing cost hurdle. The price of filing a patent could and SHOULD be based on the ability to pay so that we could "get the show on the road". Instead, coughing up at LEAST $300 just to get into the system, then needing all the lawyers and other costs is daunting and discouraging. It should be a matter of "if you file and it does or doesn't exist, then you can get a patent as long as you don't do 100% of WHAT *and* HOW they do it; just be different and better, not inferior or trolling for patent litigation..."
This could increase your risk of head/brain cancer, couldn't it, if you use CRT's? That a LOT of flux going on if you're at a small desk. You might have to degauss your surroundings.
Seriously, WHY is Slash not sometimes going Head-to-Head with submissions like these?
But, just for the reviewer's myopia with:
"Dedicate the center monitor to your current task: web browsing, working in Excel, writing in Word, editing in Photoshop."...why not take that to say, "With KDE and other Open Source GUI widgets, if your graphics card permits, then you can
"Dedicate the center monitor to your current task: web browsing in Konqueror, Opera, Mozilla-Firefox, Galeon, or working in Calc, writing in Writer, editing in GIMP or designing in VariCAD, and making music in Rosegarden."
Well, I am not an expert by any means, but some of your questions are obvious.
Q1: Even your OWN employees could steal and sell your data. But, if they do it via devices and logins, at LEAST you can get an audit trail on demand and quietly without tipping off anyone that you suspect malfeasance of some kind. One point for on-premise, 0 for SaaS.
Q2. You and ONLY YOU own the data, provided it's original content, and you didn't steal, commingle, crib or cobble and simply repackage the work of others' legitimate copyrighted/patented work. If your "work" is novel, imaginative, timely and useful, you'll probably get payback on it and deprecate it once the competition is up or the usefulness down. SaaS should NEVER, EVER "own" your data. NEVER. Shoot the CEO AND the investors if they push bullshit leveraging their position to "own" your data. This could apply to various "art" advertising and hosting websites, too. They NEED to be "crescent-wrenched" over the forehead for some of the crap they pull wherein the EULA says YOU own your data, but then the service agreement says they have fully-paid-up, royalty-free, in-perpetuity rights to recreate, modify, use, advertise or archive and process through third parties your work in any medium known or unknown throughout the universe...
Q3. If they withold your data for money or retribution or power reason, hunt down and KILL or mangle the CEO, investors, and the key shareholders pushing that position. ONLY a technical glitch should deny you access to your data. If THEY could "own" your date, what's to stop them from becoming a national asset in the eyes of some politician or policy maker who wants to exploit, shut down, or debase your activities?
Q4. This is nasty. Imagine if your company stores data and hardware in, say, Public Storage, or one of their competitors. Your CEO and key personnel perish in a flight crash, or get framed and spend 6 weeks in jail. Nobody can sign or cut checks for paying the storage bill. around 60 or 90 days into being late (sooner or later, depending on the storage company policies), your space goes into auction. Now, some lucky bastard may become OWNER of your company lawn mower, some chairs and a desk and unopened coffee makers and wall projectors, but your DATA is NOT supposed to be theirs. Your failure to pay your storage bill does NOT (or SHOULD NOT) trump, circumvent, or provide access to COPYRIGHT or PATENT protected items on behalf of the person bidding highest on your space. If they bidder is a jerk and uses or sells YOUR DATA, they are in for a world of pain, and should be fair game for brutal (psychological AND physical) treatment.
Actually, storage companies TELL you to be careful of this scenario because people DO store family heirlooms and manuscripts, company computer code and more and then try to sue the storage company. It's not that the storage company is "evil". But, maybe should have a storage insurance policy and site to store "secure"/"sensitive" items and save that for you if you pay a premium or late-payments policy. Maybe they should have a "layoff insurance"-like rent programs.
But, if a company buys the SaaS company, there SHOULD be a cooling off period in which ANY talks of a merger require immediate disclosure to ANY and ALL SaaS subscribers. This may fly in the face of a company's right or duty to expand to avoid death, but my NO means should an enterprising, reckless, greedy or stupid CEO or company be allowed hold hostage ANY customer data. The SERVICE might die, but there should be a PLACE you or your agent can go to retrieve ALL copies of your data. There should be a button you or your agent can go to on site and destroy, in one event, ALL your SaaS-hosted data. Might make a data storage and retention nightmare for SaaS companies, but if they can't offer this peace of mind, they shouldn't be allowed to host or serve to customers. They're supposed to be held to a higher standard than the typical ISP. Maybe someday this will stratify and force an industry-wide change in what ISPs vs SaaS type companies can or will do with website-sales-related activities.
Q5. See the previous comments
Q6. See the Q1-Q4. If confused, see Q5. If still confused, see Q6.
It could get worse! mshaft could buy or take a 25% stake in Novell and then back SCO and confuse the hell out of the Linux/Oracle users, making it impossible for Oracle to buy Novell.
But, then doing that might make ms look as if they NEED Linux technicians on new/different/diverging projects, or make ms look DESPERATE.
OTOH, Maybe IBM might throw in a wad of cash to merge some Novell technology and Linux here and there with IBM's own stuff, keeping mshaft AND Oracle at bay for a couple business cycles, maybe up to 10 years...
Maybe the various US trade agencies and the DOD propaganda unit are sparring with China over recent trade deficits and some cracking and intrusions that seem to point back to Chinese intel facilities?
If the US is taking masked retribution for the deficite and ms is wining about windoze and naked PCs and Linux and open source, then both are either together or independently ganging up on China and Linux for their own mutual benefit.
Yeh, Lenovo came from IBM, but since IBM's NAME is not on it, how do we know the people saying, "Who wants to buy anthing from China" are either stupid or part of government disinformation. Like others have pointed out, even DELL and Toshiba and Fujitsu and others have much of their hardware coming FROM China or passing through Chinese hands or operations in Mexico, Malaysia, Taiwan, The Philippines, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Thailand and at least 5 OTHER places hardware is assembled or tested...
Sheesh, "Who wants to buy anything from China" is a lame excuse when applied in general. Not EVERYthing coming from China is cheap or shoddy or 2nd rate. Some stuff? Yeah. A LOT, probably. EVERYthing? No.
Well, let's say the EFF or some authoritative source (please, no ms and TCP crap) maintains a list of new, active, performing A/V vendors. They get rated much like in the BBB lists.
Being on the list would cost or show about or require of the vendor
- say, $50 a year, - submission limitation of only ONE IP address - the submitted IP has to resolve to their main site - the IP cannot be changed for 1 year - the company has to be registered with its nations IRS and similar equivalents - the business gets a rating based on a preponderance of veried complaints - court cases and arbitration and nefarious or questionable marketing, technology, or product behavior gets listed - anti-competitive conduct or behavior gets noted - the vendor site has to be signature verified - the vendor site has to have a basic security of kind
Slashdot Mirror
They'll be built in Shenzen or Venezuela or Czechoslovakia or maybe someplace where China has DEEP ties.
They US government (via some CIA (or other deep-cover/black-ops (so black that gravity and light and even THOUGHTS can't escape) org) front company will buy them in bulk, or encourage their sales into the US market (since the average user user/civilian/serf/subject is non-geek and won't even be SUSPICIOUS about such matters...).
Then, the US will have not only backbone, but capillary access to the Internets'* CNS.
But, China and others will have access to the circulatory system...
But, then China and the US will keep root-canaling each other... Hmmm, maybe China will not follow through on that multi-beelions "deal" with msoft. Would Linux be a better platform to be on, from a security standpoint if a PCI-based root detector can't detect a virus or unholy payload?
* Yes, Internets', not Internet's, heheheh
Just last week I was (re)wondering whether or not all our provided/purchased cable-modems are under a national security order to be "backdoorable". Hell, the telcos have been in bed with the government for maybe all of their existence, at least the past 20 years, I suppose.
Then, I started pondering... "Hmmm... if Slashdot itself is a government DARPA project....to weed out targettable, unloyal, unsavor engineers and geeks..."
Well if this project gets really COLD, it'll be FREEZEpire.
If it gets really HOT, it'll be FreesPYRE.
If it sucks the life from other distros, it'll be VAMpire.
If it flat-out dies off, it'll EXpire.
If it continues to live, it'll REspire.
If it has a kernel panic, it might PERspire.
If it woos it's intended audience, then may it TRANCEpire
But, hopefully, it'll be really NEAT, and good things will TRANSpire...
(C) David Syes, 2006-04-24 2025
old.
I can't STAND books with boogers, hair, and other organic (food, spit) shit deposited, smeared, even in the tiniest amount. If I could SEE it, I would fork over some extra money for a new book. If the book cost over $50, I would not take the class.
In fact, hi-lites distract the hell out of me. I prefer to do my own hiliting and make my own "dogears". More, I haven't got a single resalable book. About 99% of ALL my books (even magazines), whether for school or pleasure/personal enrichment have enormous markups, underlining/hilites, dogears and such. That makes my books "PERSONAL", which is something current technology doesn't seem to make plain with digital content that you can trust to mark up and REMAIN as you wish it.
I can only imagine the peril I'd be in today. Find the LAST copy of the required book. It's smudged with some dubious "stuff" that has "texture" or "terrain" to it. The books cost too damned much, and sometimes I (conspiracy theory here) feel the instructors or professors and the book industry work to jack up the prices and force on students certain books already too pricey to begin with.
Much of the material could be generated in PDF these days, and if the publishers WANT to use DRM self-destruct code, then set it up so they students have to log in each time they attend class and sign in using a random/one-time password scheme. They just better price it right, so it's commensurate with "losing the book" after the semester's over. This would save a LOT of people from lugging and disposing (non-recycling, I'm thinking of here) of mostly reusable books.
OTOH, there will always be the risk that "revisionist historians" might update the books at login-time to exploit "current events", which makes the books susceptible to becoming marketing tools. But, if the marketing defrays the cost of the book....
fecund around a LOT....
(image word: graduate.... hmmm)
idea. That should kill that philips screw driver job.
But, I can see the hardware coming with a EULA and the cable provider transmitting or mailing subscribers a service update notification saying that if you plug in or buy and plug in the hardware, you agree to the new TOS starting on the next page... it'll probably tell you you agree to renounce "channel surfing"...
I wonder what this will do to TIVO stock, now that Slash the other day asked about TIVO being a takeover target. Maybe Philips will license this tech to TIVO or tell TIVO they can watch themselves die after a certain number of subscribers cancel service...
Hmmm... this patent could be really nasty and painful if Philips actually puts it into use. I hope they just SIT on the patent to prevent others from actually using it, but I suspect they have plans to wring money from the advertisers more than from TIVO, since it seems to me the advertisers have more momentum to PUSH ads than TIVO has to remove the ad insertion... Maybe that's a half-baked thought, but....
Gives a whoooole new meaning to ....
"Charge Carred"
And, if it acts as your ignition key, then it could be...
"Plug-in-Drive"
"There is a 100 mpg carburetor patent that an oil company is sitting on. Dozens of batteries patents are sat on by automotives, oil and petrochemical industries."
If that is true, then everyone in government and industry who KNEW and didn't FORCE that technology onto the street should be shot, hung, or emasuculated (if male)... Assholes...
THAT kind of technology could have prevented wars in the Middle East!
THIS is EXACTLY the kind of shit that makes me say that if a UFO crashed in my presence and I were the first to be able to do something about it, NOOOOO **one** government would get it first. I don't care WHERE I would be when it crashed. That, is, assuming SAC/NORAD didn't know of or track it. I mean, jeez... technology that can clean the environment, take power BACK from people who play games with their ability to control cartels, and the very assholes who'd try to decapitate those same cartel leaders... ALL of them are in bed, costing the average citizen...
I hope China finds a way to duplicate this patent and just uses it without regard for the holders of it. THAT kind of patent will enable China to put more roads and cars in WITHOUT the US bitching about "China's gonna suck down the world's oil reserves..."
It's probably the file type and the METAdata that Google's appliance is using. If it can build a sophisticated set of indexes and cross-reference material across departments a company and disciplines in an industry, then that would go a looong way toward making a lot of things possible.
Even the "vaunted US Navy" has multiple descriptive terms for ONE piece of equipment, and in the supply and maintenance lines, one engineering department on ONE ship of the SAME CLASS might have separate terms for a faulty circuit, bearing, motor.... But, I read somewhere that an indexing tools such as "Google" could go through the mishmash of records, build a base index, and then allow the humans to sanitize the stuff to make a template for future records and reports. That step done, the hard part is in the rear view mirror. If Google was the entity behind cleaning up the USN's messy records, then they can probably start doing it for the civilian industry, too.
I think it's mostly about reading tags or metadata, compiling an INdex on CONtexts, and making sure that future reports and data entry demand and enforce formatted entry of information the way a "smart" contemporary database ought to. But, companies like ms and others who thrive on non-structured data products encourage people to learn and rely on bad habits... like using (yech) spreadsheets and word processors for data repositories when ONLY a database built FOR data manipulation should be used.
Anyway, gooooooo Google. Get there first...
Well, to borrow words from Data...
I guess these PHBs adn their devs will be awake late "igniting the late night combustible petroleum products"... trying to rectify the security through obscurity thingy...
I guess Google will have dem agog... and is going to ROYALLY piss off ms... especially if this appliance has any hardware (cough, cough, LINUX) parts to it...
Well, I guess consumer computing will just remain an "electrifying" experience.
But, can't they make "paint-on" CPUs? I mean, the CPUs and the interconnects are like hand and wrist, right? Well, can they make them of similar "DNA" and part? Or, are they trying not to "kill off" some sacred part of the CPU industry?
Good will and bad vibes... what a juxt... well, if they messed up the IP value, their ass-sets will be on fire... I guess Dr. Evil will write off Preparations A-G... and use H and Tucks and some camphor...
will release a patch to fix THIS viral attack REAL soon...
BTW, I "did a Google" and searched for "etymology veritas" and got page that said, "truth, goddess of truth"
I clicked the URL, and veritas is not there...but, verity is...
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=v&p=3
I guess etymonline needs to "verify" their listings...
------
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/v/veritas.html
does have it, and Romans appear in the definition. I guess Symantec is going to feel the IRS is the new rear-reaming Romans.
--
But, makes you wonder... who piqued the IRS' attention. A "slip" of the tongue in Ireland? I guess some dragons will be getting slain... Imagine the IRS auditors salivating and rubbing their hands in glee (to Austin Powers.. with a little bit of Ren/Stimpy voice thrown in (Or, if you like, Simon Bar Sinister...)): "You owe US.. **O**N**E** BEEL-YUN dollars...(YEE--hee--haah--haah-haah-haah...)"
I bet the Symantec eyes POPPED out at that board meeting.
Moral of the story about rampant M&A activity: Don't lie about the assets value, OR, just don't make the purchase/acquisition...
Interesting: word image: "backyard"
"How a patent like that got granted in the first place is absolutly beyond me."
Probably because is absolutely beyond your ability to pay for it? (I'm assuming you can't cough up the cash to get a patent AND the investors AND the manufacturing and the rest of the entourage that keeps many people from filing...)
If Burst.com crashes and burns and burns a lot of people in the process, they will be known as.... (get ready...)
curst.bom
(Cursed.bomb)
Well, this could be a GOOD thing if it cuts down on the gun-related murder rate in the US. But, if such an arrest were legal in Amsterdam and upheld by the World Court, then the next step would be go go after vacationing land mine developers.
Next up, lobbyists FOR and legislators OF bad domestic law and poor domestic public policy... Catch it at 10PM
designs of vessels:
http://www.copyright.gov/vessels/list/index.html
http://www.copyright.gov/vessels/
Vessel Hull Design Protection Act: Overview and Analysis:
http://www.copyright.gov/reports/vhdpa-report.pdf
It's interesting that some of the most obvious things about boats and small craft can be "registered and protected". **Seems** like the LibCong is/could be headed the same way the USPTO...
Seems that if you design and sell or display a "boat" SOMEbody can sue you for even common, prior-art stuff. Somewhat to its credit, though, the boating industry doesn't want to see a series of expensive and industry-crippling lawsuits rising up. But, at the same time, I find it a bit disturbing that many of the boats depicted are not unique, special, innovative, or the like.
Or, being able to discuss the disgusting, wholly-unholy hole(s), but not being able to show the hole(s), or the whole hole(s).
"Visit the remnants of Detroit motor city works, Ye Mighty, and despair"
...
... ..."
I just the other day read in the Onion "Detroit Sold for Scrap".
"Detroit, a former industrial metropolis in southeastern Michigan with a population of just under 1 million, was sold at auction Tuesday to bulky scrap dealers and smelting foundries across the United States.
Once dismantled and processed, Detroit is expected to yield nearly 14 million tons of steel, 2.85 million tons of aluminum, and approximately 837,000 tons of copper.
According to scrap dealers, Detroit is an aging city in fair-to-poor condition, with "substantial wear and tear." It also bears the marks of extensive fire and rust damage, and it may not comply with current U.S. safety and emission standards.
There's more, but you get the idea.
We need a way to stem the tide of bullshit and odor emanating from the USPTO and the complement of turd-nugget companies and individuals abusing the beleaguered system. Also, it's not helping that IBM and msoft and others are filing somewhere around or over 2,000 patents a year. The filing threshold should DEMAND that if this thing will be TECH and not a physical product, and if current software or emulation tools will nullify it, then you can earn money from it, BUT IT WON'T BE PATENTABLE, in the interest of cutting out all these g*ddamned lawsuits. But, I suppose such changes (above and below) would somehow cripple to good 'ole US economy and free enterprise...
But, the US patent system is irrefutably f*cked mainly because it seems you have to be big or have a warchest to fight an infringer. Worse, you can be litigated to DEATH by some a*hole troll or warped people and businesses who failed to IMPLEMENT, not just FILE an idea/product design. And, while you can get a provisional patent filing, it isn't much protection other than getting you a date. Moreover, since just about anything tech is full of legalese an bullshit/jumbo self-congratulatory mumbo jumbo, it's virtually impossible to make heads or tales just by reading the text. I sometimes am aghast and amazed that a patent was granted. some of the stuff I read made me want to destroy furniture and go puke in a corner. It's appalling how the USPTO sucks up to money in a LOT of ways.
They USPTO should require and provide "faster and easier", not just their current searchability (I think Lotus Approach the database has better user-friendly searchability) AND pictures you can actually **USE**. Some of the pictures I saw were USELESS, and hard to download onto my Linux-based system because of some bullshit file/graphics plug-in they REQUIRE. I suppose they don't know about PDF, or they're in bed with the industry to make it hard for small people to QUICKLY dig thru the database to find something.
The dry, boring, overly-broad language I've perused in many patent filings is worthy of the most scathing and condemnatory language that can be continually devised, and the USPTO needs to be overhauled. If $5,000,000 can't resolve their problem, they should lose their status as a government enterprise and be replaced with a better database and the staff replaced by business-averse, non-bullshitting people who DEMAND the product work, be in the market at least 6 months, and not be based on an overly-broad patent.
I'm getting a damned headache just THINKING of this problem. Little people like myself have ideas (not on my computer) but face the filing cost hurdle. The price of filing a patent could and SHOULD be based on the ability to pay so that we could "get the show on the road". Instead, coughing up at LEAST $300 just to get into the system, then needing all the lawyers and other costs is daunting and discouraging. It should be a matter of "if you file and it does or doesn't exist, then you can get a patent as long as you don't do 100% of WHAT *and* HOW they do it; just be different and better, not inferior or trolling for patent litigation..."
So, while I wou
Head. Coming to a desktop near you.
...why not take that to say, "With KDE and other Open Source GUI widgets, if your graphics card permits, then you can
This could increase your risk of head/brain cancer, couldn't it, if you use CRT's? That a LOT of flux going on if you're at a small desk. You might have to degauss your surroundings.
Seriously, WHY is Slash not sometimes going Head-to-Head with submissions like these?
But, just for the reviewer's myopia with:
"Dedicate the center monitor to your current task: web browsing, working in Excel, writing in Word, editing in Photoshop."
"Dedicate the center monitor to your current task: web browsing in Konqueror, Opera, Mozilla-Firefox, Galeon, or working in Calc, writing in Writer, editing in GIMP or designing in VariCAD, and making music in Rosegarden."
Well, I am not an expert by any means, but some of your questions are obvious.
Q1: Even your OWN employees could steal and sell your data. But, if they do it via devices and logins, at LEAST you can get an audit trail on demand and quietly without tipping off anyone that you suspect malfeasance of some kind. One point for on-premise, 0 for SaaS.
Q2. You and ONLY YOU own the data, provided it's original content, and you didn't steal, commingle, crib or cobble and simply repackage the work of others' legitimate copyrighted/patented work. If your "work" is novel, imaginative, timely and useful, you'll probably get payback on it and deprecate it once the competition is up or the usefulness down. SaaS should NEVER, EVER "own" your data. NEVER. Shoot the CEO AND the investors if they push bullshit leveraging their position to "own" your data. This could apply to various "art" advertising and hosting websites, too. They NEED to be "crescent-wrenched" over the forehead for some of the crap they pull wherein the EULA says YOU own your data, but then the service agreement says they have fully-paid-up, royalty-free, in-perpetuity rights to recreate, modify, use, advertise or archive and process through third parties your work in any medium known or unknown throughout the universe...
Q3. If they withold your data for money or retribution or power reason, hunt down and KILL or mangle the CEO, investors, and the key shareholders pushing that position. ONLY a technical glitch should deny you access to your data. If THEY could "own" your date, what's to stop them from becoming a national asset in the eyes of some politician or policy maker who wants to exploit, shut down, or debase your activities?
Q4. This is nasty. Imagine if your company stores data and hardware in, say, Public Storage, or one of their competitors. Your CEO and key personnel perish in a flight crash, or get framed and spend 6 weeks in jail. Nobody can sign or cut checks for paying the storage bill. around 60 or 90 days into being late (sooner or later, depending on the storage company policies), your space goes into auction. Now, some lucky bastard may become OWNER of your company lawn mower, some chairs and a desk and unopened coffee makers and wall projectors, but your DATA is NOT supposed to be theirs. Your failure to pay your storage bill does NOT (or SHOULD NOT) trump, circumvent, or provide access to COPYRIGHT or PATENT protected items on behalf of the person bidding highest on your space. If they bidder is a jerk and uses or sells YOUR DATA, they are in for a world of pain, and should be fair game for brutal (psychological AND physical) treatment.
Actually, storage companies TELL you to be careful of this scenario because people DO store family heirlooms and manuscripts, company computer code and more and then try to sue the storage company. It's not that the storage company is "evil". But, maybe should have a storage insurance policy and site to store "secure"/"sensitive" items and save that for you if you pay a premium or late-payments policy. Maybe they should have a "layoff insurance"-like rent programs.
But, if a company buys the SaaS company, there SHOULD be a cooling off period in which ANY talks of a merger require immediate disclosure to ANY and ALL SaaS subscribers. This may fly in the face of a company's right or duty to expand to avoid death, but my NO means should an enterprising, reckless, greedy or stupid CEO or company be allowed hold hostage ANY customer data. The SERVICE might die, but there should be a PLACE you or your agent can go to retrieve ALL copies of your data. There should be a button you or your agent can go to on site and destroy, in one event, ALL your SaaS-hosted data. Might make a data storage and retention nightmare for SaaS companies, but if they can't offer this peace of mind, they shouldn't be allowed to host or serve to customers. They're supposed to be held to a higher standard than the typical ISP. Maybe someday this will stratify and force an industry-wide change in what ISPs vs SaaS type companies can or will do with website-sales-related activities.
Q5. See the previous comments
Q6. See the Q1-Q4. If confused, see Q5. If still confused, see Q6.
It could get worse! mshaft could buy or take a 25% stake in Novell and then back SCO and confuse the hell out of the Linux/Oracle users, making it impossible for Oracle to buy Novell.
But, then doing that might make ms look as if they NEED Linux technicians on new/different/diverging projects, or make ms look DESPERATE.
OTOH, Maybe IBM might throw in a wad of cash to merge some Novell technology and Linux here and there with IBM's own stuff, keeping mshaft AND Oracle at bay for a couple business cycles, maybe up to 10 years...
Maybe the various US trade agencies and the DOD propaganda unit are sparring with China over recent trade deficits and some cracking and intrusions that seem to point back to Chinese intel facilities?
If the US is taking masked retribution for the deficite and ms is wining about windoze and naked PCs and Linux and open source, then both are either together or independently ganging up on China and Linux for their own mutual benefit.
Yeh, Lenovo came from IBM, but since IBM's NAME is not on it, how do we know the people saying, "Who wants to buy anthing from China" are either stupid or part of government disinformation. Like others have pointed out, even DELL and Toshiba and Fujitsu and others have much of their hardware coming FROM China or passing through Chinese hands or operations in Mexico, Malaysia, Taiwan, The Philippines, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Thailand and at least 5 OTHER places hardware is assembled or tested...
Sheesh, "Who wants to buy anything from China" is a lame excuse when applied in general. Not EVERYthing coming from China is cheap or shoddy or 2nd rate. Some stuff? Yeah. A LOT, probably. EVERYthing? No.
Hmmm, image word: "greedy"
Well, let's say the EFF or some authoritative source (please, no ms and TCP crap) maintains a list of new, active, performing A/V vendors. They get rated much like in the BBB lists.
Being on the list would cost or show about or require of the vendor
- say, $50 a year,
- submission limitation of only ONE IP address
- the submitted IP has to resolve to their main site
- the IP cannot be changed for 1 year
- the company has to be registered with its nations IRS and similar equivalents
- the business gets a rating based on a preponderance of veried complaints
- court cases and arbitration and nefarious or questionable marketing, technology, or product behavior gets listed
- anti-competitive conduct or behavior gets noted
- the vendor site has to be signature verified
- the vendor site has to have a basic security of kind
More items? Anyone?