taking a page out of Linux's/Open Source's play book, what's their point? To make windows soooo less bloated as to scream past industry would-be critics? Compared to Linux/Open Source, users/installers ALWAYS have the choice of what and how much and which versions of any given app to install or defer until after initial installation. Best of all, while not all L/OS apps are necessarily functional, nor world-calls, nor commercially-polished, many get scrutiny beyond the walls of their creators, and run on MULTIPLE dozens of variations of Linux, some even having OS-agnostic counterparts.
I wonder if w7 will come weighing in at under 500 MB, or still be 7 GB, most of it being registry cubbyholes for as-yet/not-yet-created twinkle-in-the-eye windows apps, for virtualization/security/national security apps.
OTOH, this *might* be an attempt to "look like" "Commercial Open Source", to look like they know how to evolve, while at the same time trying to "pull a Stanford Graduate School Of Business-like" compete with Open Source and deny O/S entry into the market...
And then the DHLS agents can all be Commanders Braxtion, zipping through the timelines, arresting or aborting people, or arresting and coitus-interrupting the would-be parents, all stating like the Vidal Sassoon (And, THEY'LL tell two friends, and so on and so on and so on... commercial):
"I am Commander Braxton, of the DHLS Timeship Aeon. You are being arrested for crimes you WILL commit...", or,
"I am Commander Braxton, of the DHLS TimePos ICOS. You sex act is being disrupted to delay or prevent arrival of the bastard/bitch YOU MIGHT give rise to..."
So, what of a Kenyan sprinter, having lost his run, is sweating profusely, dons his sweat pants, runs to a store outside the track event, and is frustrated because he doesn't know what to do? In SOME countries, he might be assumed to be en route to a criminal activity (if the cameras and human monitors don't take into account he's a jogger...)
But, what of a hunter who takes down the helpless elk, only to watch a ranger or warden haul it away, or, worse, has some teens or (gasp, senior citizens bored with life) come along and take that elk away? But, the shooters head to town for some beers. If caught on a camera, would THEY be suspected of prepping to kill or harm anyone?
IIRC, Eudora way back in 1997 permitted admins the ability to reply on behalf of the VPs where i used to work. IIRC, and i am not certain, but i think FirstClass did, too, and i used that back around 1993. Too bad FC faded away. Too bad hexedchange took root. I hope my memory is correct, and i hope i am helping to bust any related, undeserved or hijacked patents mshaft might have surreptitiously bought from the USPTO.
The ships can simultaneously be stealthy and attractive. One example: every navy has standards and many have differentiation in appearances due to national and architectural and service input. Anyway, while i am happy th SK navy and the JMSDF have formidable ships, i wish the SK would effectively or economically find a way to to suck up or give in to political reasons resulting in the King Sejong The Great looking like another Burke clone. SK can do BETTER than THAT. Atago is sexier than DDG-8+.
they'd still come after you, in sheer bad faith descending upon you.
But, by that token, they should not have been allowed to bully MikeRowe, either. It's not as if he had a viable, contending software company to topple ms' "good name".
In another post to this topic, I pointed out (like the person bringing up Mc" prefixes on names), there is someone wealthy/historic in Europe/England/UK who is in the position to deprive McDonalds of ever doing business in the UK should they ever tell him his name on restaurants is an infringement on "their" name. They have a living succession of humans using the name. IIRC, McDonalds is an entity made up, only "recently".
While I'm grateful for one Admiral Elmo Zumwalt for making changes that made Navy life better before I joined (well, a number of admirals hated his guts, and a number he had to fire, IIRC), I am glad it appears the DDG-1000 design is not going to see too many more copies. It is just an ungainly appearance, un-naval looking, and it seems more navies using Aegis want the DDG-51 look (for now...). Every time i LOOKED at the DDG-1000 my stomach growled. It's too bad the boondoggle of a project even got programmed funding. Now, that's money partly wasted, tho *some* of the knowledge gained *might* be back fitted to the DDG-51 class/DDG-9x+ variants. But, the gun system apparently is too large to back fit.
I could start an event called "San Fran 2009.05" and park the page and announce that I will have a major pornograthon scheduled. Whether or not I ultimate line up the funding and get more than a few hundred visits is irrelevant. Same for high school kids who might want to register their enmity toward their high school or city, and celebrate their graduation by saying, "Marshville-2015" or some such name. Whether or not "Marshville" is aware that it has funding programmed to fix sewer and other infrastructure woes and plans to have a massive county-wide celebration in 2015 is irrelevant. They'd better snap up the page, start advertising on it, and have an activity that is worthy (or unworthy) of using the name.
What IS relevant is that the Olympics/their sponsors committed slept. If they had been doing due diligence, they'd have registered all of them, or asked the international arbitartion/relevant standards/registrars groups to blacklist names of existing trademark/sequential/periodic events and make trademark holders pay for the maintenance of such lists, and to park the pages if parking would be prudent.
For this:
"We certainly see Chicago2016.com as the logical default domain for our site, and we believe having someone else control it is misleading for people seeking information about Chicago's bid,' said Patrick Sandusky, a spokesman for Chicago 2016, a moniker protected by trademark.""
That is sheer stupidity. Their "natural right" or "logical default domain" is a hollow argument if they KNOW they have a name that is easy to preempt.
There are lots of people named "McDonald" who might want to open a website and a business named "McDonald" (but not "McDonalds"), and they'd get their asses sued off. Well, except in the UK, from what I understand, since a well-regarded/immensely wealthy/historical individual with the name would simply order McD's to surrender or quit business in the UK... There are some 100 people with my surname, and if i want to use solely the letters in my name, i'd likely be SOL. But, if I use my letters in combination with some product or idea or place, I'd have a better chance. If another hostile person of the same name or a country or entity wanted to challenge me, they'd have to shut up simply because there are many many surnames and people with common names, and they'd have to learn to differentiate their activity more creatively.
I have nothing against the Olympics in general. They just went to sleep at the wheel and they should just accept that. They can Say "Chicago-Olympics-2016", and have a more legit, more clear, more explanatory name that. The nerve of some people...
I wouldn't be surprised if some shill zings me as off-topic or inflammatory, but...
Is this the *same* outfit that got hundreds of millions, if not *billions* for the widely-ridiculed Bertholf National Security Cutter widely derided as a boondoggle and which might not see more copies built because that outfit couldn't coordinate with subcontractors to get the damned communications systems' TEMPEST security wiring in place?
Ok... how can *i* get just $50,000 of that cash without killing, blackmailing, or doing seances and runes?
Why is it that an asshole troll of some flagger/tagger/moderator can mod me as -1 off-topic when another person making the SAME GENERAL line of thought is *not*. This is further exemplifying the unfairness of allowing pricks to roam around on/. slamming down on people they view as a foe. Anytime someone is knocking someone down, that person should automatically be marked as their target's foe so they cannot get away with constantly off-topic-marking someone with whom they have an axe to grind.
If someone is marked off-topic, via a flag, then the flag mechanism for that thread/article should aggregate ALL the same-marked comments so that they can be matched and then flaggers/moderators behind the abuse can be identified and reprimanded. I PURPOSELY inserted my comment near or beneath the one I was commenting on, and some bastard felt it crucial to ding me anyway.
Worse, when general topics come up, invariably someone forks it and because so much inertia is behind an enlightened or funny comment that it does NOT get marked off-topic. A master/warning: diverging toward off-topic flag should be assigned so that those wanting to STAY on topic can see the indentation or color or flashing instead of having to wade through 2 or 5 pages to find something ON-TOPIC rather than funny to attach to.
Whoever this bastard is is lucky i'm not omnipotent...
Years ago, i was with my (shortly thereafter -ex) girlfriend, buying things for her. We were in a computer store, with a sales rep assisting us decide what to buy. She said, "Oh, then that way we can kill one bird with two stones." The sales guy and i looked at each other. In a low voice i said, "That will be ONE PISSED OFF BIRD, getting hit with TWO stones."
Thank you, GrpA! You said more succinctly and less belligerently what i had said. But, i think my violence/9/11 allusions are going to be manifested upon the US in under 5 years. This kind of careless manufacturing and fake-green-standards trumpet-blaring cannot go on forever.
This kind of manufacturing and e-waste-dumping deserves NOTHING less than the most harsh, condemning, excoriating, almost-execution-mandating response. (Maybe the smartest people need to stop suggesting and start holding GUNS to the head of those who approve or scheme up manufacturing with no per-product materials-class recycling conduit...?) It's no accident or result of ignorance that inventors and designers in industrialized countries fail to design a recycling channel into their products' manufacturing, or that many governments don't mandate it, even at the increased cost of goods.
The way I see it is akin to 9/11 (and no, unlike what the wankers in DC say on TV, 9/11 is NOT about being jealous of us: it's mostly revenge and a wake-up call to conducts PAST, not about materialism... it's supposed to humiliate and change behavior, not wipe us out, but we don't seem to be heeding the lesson...):.... But, decades of screwing around abroad (militarily, politically, economically, etc.) instead of cleaning house at home is not much different than e-waste dumping products to India, Somalia, China and other places. For OUR immediate-gratification benefit, untold thousands die daily, and millions in a few years due to over production (yeh, i know a tiny bit about scale and maximum profits/minimal materials), less than stellar consumptions than planned, and ultimate waste disposal rather than fixing of the goods, others die. This karma will or should come back home to roost at the foot of any country (and, no, i'm not somehow absolving China's leadership woes, either) that is blase or careless about the impact.
There needs to be a national mandate to shut down ALL new inventions manufacturing if there is no globally-acceptable recycling conduit. If I draw or print, my papers can be recycled if no one wants them later. If if design CD holders, or tire rims, or medical equipment that is for few uses or one-time use, and it's contaminated beyond the typical chemicals, and it's likely to end up in a landfill, or in a sewer, the my products should be banned.
I BUY electronics, books, and other items which i expect to last me 5-10 years, and I take it on FAITH that our "manufacturing community" is concurrently strategising to recover and reintegrate the most offensive materials into new products. But, having lead, zinc, germanium, arsenic, cyanide-laden and other items -- even ship hulls with fuel and paint content that all end up smoldering, blackening skies, and poisoning fisheries... well, that is just plain reprehensible and needs to be taken in hand
I wonder how many other people have been fucked by their recruiters, only to end up demoralized, deserting, and getting into constant trouble all to their detriment. All in all, i came out OK, but some people do NOT. Just back in 2007, some 3 to 5 US soldiers a DAY were attempting suicide in Iraq, and some 2,000 + attempts were documented. Many more than that might have and not be diagnosed as having PTSD and other issues on return to the US.
For an interesting story of one soldier who had PTSD after serving in Iraq around 2007, listen to NPR (I think it was "This American Life" or another program about a US Solider who returned to the US and ended up joining his campus' Muslim group in order to deal with his trauma and personal issues that the US military could not directly help him cope with.
"How about if Virtual Rape 1.0" applied to lazy recruiters and unsympathetic R&O (Receiving & Outfitting)/Indoc personnel's victims? My story is not NEARLY as painful as that of those who were shot at or had to kill because of being under orders to be where a fight was going to take place, but...
In my 10th grade year (81-82:
-- I was a member of the Henry Nichols Detachment of the Young Marines in Galveston -- I was a member of the Ball High Army Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps and in one year was promoted to Cadet Staff Sgt, was a member of the match rifle team, shot expert, and earned some 8 or 12 ribbons, made squad leader, and then moved on the San Jose
From 11th through 12th grades (82-83, 83-84), i:
-- was a member of the Milpitas High Navy JROTC unit, earning several more ribbons, and was on the color guard. We didn't have a match rifle team. Before being allowed to join the unit, I was forced to give up my rank attained in AJROTC, despite national rules stating that cadets could transfer to other branches' units and retain rank if military aptitude and other things were demonstrable. I was already intent on joining the USN (and did later). But, unit/teenager politics prevailed, and some cadets who outranked me and whom i don't recall actually joining the military didn't want me to appear from nowhere and outrank THEM. They even conspired to have the unit commander request me to remove my ribbons and not wear more than a few of them if they couldn't find a corresponding NJROTC ribbon or medal.
After putting up with that bullshit for 2 years, I only made it to cadet Ensign, and had I stayed at Ball High, I would have been in line for battalion commander, from what I was told by one of my best friends who remained in the unit until we graduated (same ages/grades, but i left Galveston). I was Mr. A-Jay Squared Away, and the YM detachment commander and the JROTC commander were both squabbling over who had me first and which of their unit events took precedence over the other.
When i signed up for the Delayed Entry program at the recruiting station at McKee Road in San Jose, the US Army, USMC AND the US Air Force recruiters were *begging* my recruiter (i had two of them, as one transitioned out) to let THEM have me, in trade for two or three of their own. They'd all seen or heard of me, and sometimes saw me in full uniform, with medals and ribbons, Corfam/Patent Leather shoes, sharp-crease ironed uniforms and so on.
I filled out ALL the required paperwork my recruiter presented to me. I was eligible for early advancement to E-3 upon successful graduation of boot camp. But, ahhh, while I was placed in Drill Company because I was a member of the aforementioned military-affiliated units, my recruiter dicked up and did NOT process nor fill out any paperwork recognizing my service in the various units, and being stupid, i just *accepted* that the USN would do the right thing. It was painful, watching my fellow booters/shipmates with their paperwork all filled out properly getting their 3 stripes, yet i had to excel and outperform dozens of peers for over a YEAR after arriving at USS Flint (AE-32).
"Unless you just want to waste $30 to get an RFID chip that contains nothing but an ID number."
If it is good enough for DHS, then it should be good enough for air travel into the US, too, since it's good for ground transportation. Personally, if this is easier and cheaper than getting a passport, and *almost* as good, then the State Department/et al should go a step further and allow it to speedily replace or be equivalent TO the US passport. It should, however, infer RESIDENCE, not citizenship (since disclosure of citizenship could get one killed).
By knocking 'citizenship' off of the spec, then traveling students who abide by the terms of their visas could travel home more easily on their school holidays. Since EVERYTHING is subject to tampering, why not code these for anyone who properly applies and enrolls or lives in an approved condition/status.
Hell, for that matter, assign them to immigrant aliens or even illegal aliens who are seasonal workers. This would allow better statistics tracking to get a more sane handle on who is doing the back-breaking, thankless-task work "ordinary merkuns" would never "stoop" to do.
Countries need to get the hell out of the business of "citizenship" and get more into population distribution/new cities development management. For that matter, not to say "China", but the US needs to start spending some of that $10/month-alone-in-Iraq" money on fixing shitty US infrastructure, and razing old cities the way Mother Nature just pretty much RAZED Galveston.
[I used to live there, and when I revisited in Feb 08 it was no less anxiety-inducing, raggedy, and decrepit as it was when I left in 1982. Oh, there ARE new buildings, but the older era crap still there hurt my stomach, made me dizzy, and i was all too happy to not have to be there more than a couple of days. The tired-ass excuse "Well, that's the way it's always been" (hinting, leave it raggedy as it is; don't spend tourist/oil dollars for poor-ass people who won't appreciate it anyway?)]
I'm sick of hearing erudite/educated/trusted people talk about how expensive it would be to deprive existing cities of growth. Instead of Denver or Phoenix further expanding, just make new-model cities with all-new or updated code, free of the rife corruption and bullshit associated with existing cities. Too many existing cities have worn-out infrastructure, pockets of crime and poverty, and need to be razed, by Nature or by other means. There is too much wealth existing in the US for these blight, eye-sore, vomitous-inducing cities to persist like cankers on an eyeball.
Now, back to RFID, RFID could do all sorts of things, like help transit systems route vehicles (rail and non-rail) so that more efficient movement of passengers can be realized. I ride THREE transit systems (MUNI, BART, and AC Transit) to work. Muni is $45 a month for my adult fast pass. BART is pay by the ride, and costs me about $3.65 each way. AC is (for me) pay by the day and costs $1.50 each way, so when I'm close to broke, i walk on my evening leg home for 30 minutes to save $1.50.
When I ride in, I'm almost perpetually missing one 30-minute-periodicity bus by 2 minutes. Or, I arrive some 10-15 early. It's not convenient to use the more frequent buses because I end up having to walk 5 minutes and prefer to arrive at my desk almost as fresh as when I left the shower. In the evening i don't care, though. Now, with RFID, riders could plug the thing into a data port at the transit planning center web site, or at a kiosk, or if technology and sheer non-partisan will power could rise over stupidity and turf battles, a person on a bus could get near or plug in their card, tap a screen and adjust their route.
With lots of people *responsibly* using the system, then merely entering the reading range and tapping a wall board or console to confirm "Standard Daily Preferences" would alert the system to adjust the arrival, speed, and number of cars in a given train, and give priority to certain trains or lone (automated) train cars t
(Sorry to post here under your Score:5, but i scrolled for half-3/4 the screen and saw NOTHING but stuff about contintents arguments, arguably OFF-TOPIC..., but, anyway...)
Congresswoman Sanchez is taking a nice, fine step forward. Like you, my FIRST though was, "What about non-US citizens/residents? WE are NO better, yet no less worthy than other citizens of this planet. This is potentially a growing case of discrimination: Bring your currency-converted-to-dollars, but you and your property are up for grabs"
However, she needs to go a step further. The agents need to endure a burden. The seizure should not be permitted until they've duplicated the data and THEN they should return unmolested hardware and software to the owner/holder/carrier of said electronics. This will prevent or deter the agents from getting wily or crafty.
If we travel with cloning devices and brand-new, compatible target hard drives, the agents will either take all that, too, or claim they cannot trust neither the source nor targets.
I think I am now starting to wonder about her genuineness, or maybe she's trying a trial balloon to see whether or not the CBP will counter offer in order to accept public-acceptable levels of accountability and responsibility.
Currently (last time i read), police, doctors (mental/medical), and business leaders/professionals are to be provided some level of scrutiny/seizure protection, but what of the rest of the internationally-flying public? If I can fly INTO a non-US country and avoid this patriarchal molestation of my personal property and dignity, then why is it that the vaunted US of A feel it to be necessary? Oh, it can't stop swinging it's dick into a hornet's nest, living on the brink of bad karma while trying to balance that against benevolence.... Scary, and sad.
Be sure to keep copies of applications from the past. Get investors to fund the operation of:
-- buying legit copies of all known software, past, present and future (as released) -- hire an army of average to excellent developers (experienced and unorthodox, but semi-productive) -- get them to collectively and/or in groups use the library of tools...
for the purpose of demonstrating in patent cases that pre-existing software was capable of doing what is currently being litigated. It should not matter that no "prior art" was generated or publicized. That the software was able to easily or with "reasonable coaxing" produce work that is claimed as "novel" should matter. This would prevent inane issuance/awarding of patents that are just crazy, like patents for stamping the back of a photo in the cell phone, or, in the computer, or printer before printing.
Some philanthropic person with an axe to grind at some big companies could hire people to do this, systematically taking apart certain assholes-of-corporations that patent to obstruct with no real novel gain in what the product or function is doing. So, whereas some small-time inventor could be using procedures or code from an arcane piece of software and otherwise being unmolested in court, big-time companies and lawyers would rather pretend that prior art is necessarily PUBLISHED.
One way to increase one's chances of creating clear, usable, patentable drawings is to consider using Punch! ViaCAD. I do. I love it. It's WAY cheaper than AutoCAD, tho it has a Mac-ish interface. But, once one spends some time getting used to the sparse interface, it's features, and staying on top of or involved with the forums, ViaCAD could be a GODSEND. For me, the graphics are much more soothing to my eye, and less cluttered than AutoCAD. AC for certain has thousands of features, but for many struggling, new entrepreneurs, AC is nothing less than an absolute overkill, comparing $98 vs ~$6,000. Even AC Lite, inventor and any Inventor Lite products won't be low enough in price for law-abiding entrepreneurs (people with very little money or next to NO money).
Since my manual drafting skills are wanting and my handwriting is horrid, and ViaCAD runs fine in VirtualBox (in, sigh, vista) in my PCLinuxOS-based laptop, ViaCAD is a blessing for me, having paid $98 retail (at CompUSA, when they were still around), then only $15 for the upgrade and access to periodic patches. The ViaCAD product may be going away, being replaced by ViaCAD Pro, which used to cost over or around $500, which is being replaced by Shark. So, for the capabilities of ViaCAD and ViaCAD Pro (which I gather will price around $250-ish), it's hard to beat, if one is not looking for pure AutoCAD or cheap AC clones (which Autodesk *seems* to not be running out of business)
But, the main thing is, if you can IMAGINE it, use CAD, ANY CAD you can legally obtain, and design your work. Be novel, be neat, and try to use a 3-D printing shop if you can afford it. Beats going to a manufacture or representative of one that might force you to pay for expensive dies and molds for parts or parts of ideas that might never go into production.
Look around. Reenvision a product that has annoyed the hell out of you and left you with that feeling of "I can improve upon THAT". Sketch it on paper, measure it, think about it, then model it in 3D. I am someone who tries to model in 3D, using 2D as a base point. I don't like (generally) modeling non-simple things in 2D first. ViaCAD (or any decent 3D tool) will let a drafter start in 2D or 3D and extend/extrapolate the model iteratively to avoid matters of constant re-measuring.
Yeh, purists will say "LEARN 2D FIRST!", but some of us are simply, unabashedly wired to think in 3D and struggle or chafe being forced to do in 2D what modern tools permit in 3D (modeling, flattening, obtaining centers of gravity, weight/mass, materials information assignment, trimming, translating/moving, spinning/rotating) that are a ROYAL PITA in 2D-centric drafting.
As for your ideas, don't sit in a coffee shop where a sensitive idea you work on gets stolen from behind your back. Document your ideas. Share with NO ONE you don't trust. If you practice, in the open, do it on stuff of no consequence. Guard you backpack or laptop. If you cannot afford to patent, then BE SURE to consider visiting a Small Business Administration office, a SCORE advisor, industry trade shows, learning about non-disclosure agreements, intellectual property, and ALSO consider -- if all else fails -- publishing your ideas as prior art measures. Publish no only on the web (if you feel you cannot afford the risk of those late-night inventor informercials), but at a public place, in print, and distribute to put (voluntarily or involuntarily) others that YOUR idea might be of interest to them, but that YOU have copyright on it. For damages protection, register with the US Copyright Office/Library of Congress.
If you are a student, working on a project, consider affixing copyright notices on your drawings so your instructors and classmates cannot lay claim to your ORIGINAL work or your novel modifications. If it's a team project,
Several phones, such as the V 402-SH (from year 2004) enabled the user to annotate pics shot via the phone. That is only halfway to the other side of the photo. Sharp also had in Dec 04 cellphones with haptics, with auto rotating displays, and with displays that turned silver ro normal an Harajuku girls could pretty-up without looking for a separate mirror. I saw/felt these first-hand in Tokyo. The USPTO better wake up and stop taking greed money, or else...
Slashdot Mirror
taking a page out of Linux's/Open Source's play book, what's their point? To make windows soooo less bloated as to scream past industry would-be critics? Compared to Linux/Open Source, users/installers ALWAYS have the choice of what and how much and which versions of any given app to install or defer until after initial installation. Best of all, while not all L/OS apps are necessarily functional, nor world-calls, nor commercially-polished, many get scrutiny beyond the walls of their creators, and run on MULTIPLE dozens of variations of Linux, some even having OS-agnostic counterparts.
I wonder if w7 will come weighing in at under 500 MB, or still be 7 GB, most of it being registry cubbyholes for as-yet/not-yet-created twinkle-in-the-eye windows apps, for virtualization/security/national security apps.
OTOH, this *might* be an attempt to "look like" "Commercial Open Source", to look like they know how to evolve, while at the same time trying to "pull a Stanford Graduate School Of Business-like" compete with Open Source and deny O/S entry into the market...
And then the DHLS agents can all be Commanders Braxtion, zipping through the timelines, arresting or aborting people, or arresting and coitus-interrupting the would-be parents, all stating like the Vidal Sassoon (And, THEY'LL tell two friends, and so on and so on and so on... commercial):
"I am Commander Braxton, of the DHLS Timeship Aeon. You are being arrested for crimes you WILL commit...", or,
"I am Commander Braxton, of the DHLS TimePos ICOS. You sex act is being disrupted to delay or prevent arrival of the bastard/bitch YOU MIGHT give rise to..."
So, what of a Kenyan sprinter, having lost his run, is sweating profusely, dons his sweat pants, runs to a store outside the track event, and is frustrated because he doesn't know what to do? In SOME countries, he might be assumed to be en route to a criminal activity (if the cameras and human monitors don't take into account he's a jogger...)
But, what of a hunter who takes down the helpless elk, only to watch a ranger or warden haul it away, or, worse, has some teens or (gasp, senior citizens bored with life) come along and take that elk away? But, the shooters head to town for some beers. If caught on a camera, would THEY be suspected of prepping to kill or harm anyone?
IIRC, Eudora way back in 1997 permitted admins the ability to reply on behalf of the VPs where i used to work. IIRC, and i am not certain, but i think FirstClass did, too, and i used that back around 1993. Too bad FC faded away. Too bad hexedchange took root. I hope my memory is correct, and i hope i am helping to bust any related, undeserved or hijacked patents mshaft might have surreptitiously bought from the USPTO.
The ships can simultaneously be stealthy and attractive. One example: every navy has standards and many have differentiation in appearances due to national and architectural and service input. Anyway, while i am happy th SK navy and the JMSDF have formidable ships, i wish the SK would effectively or economically find a way to to suck up or give in to political reasons resulting in the King Sejong The Great looking like another Burke clone. SK can do BETTER than THAT. Atago is sexier than DDG-8+.
I'll bet that if you named your product:
MicroBird Softhouse, or
SoftBird Microhouse
they'd still come after you, in sheer bad faith descending upon you.
But, by that token, they should not have been allowed to bully MikeRowe, either. It's not as if he had a viable, contending software company to topple ms' "good name".
In another post to this topic, I pointed out (like the person bringing up Mc" prefixes on names), there is someone wealthy/historic in Europe/England/UK who is in the position to deprive McDonalds of ever doing business in the UK should they ever tell him his name on restaurants is an infringement on "their" name. They have a living succession of humans using the name. IIRC, McDonalds is an entity made up, only "recently".
Just my 1.99 cents...
Thread of the subject's contractor (Lockheed)
While I'm grateful for one Admiral Elmo Zumwalt for making changes that made Navy life better before I joined (well, a number of admirals hated his guts, and a number he had to fire, IIRC), I am glad it appears the DDG-1000 design is not going to see too many more copies. It is just an ungainly appearance, un-naval looking, and it seems more navies using Aegis want the DDG-51 look (for now...). Every time i LOOKED at the DDG-1000 my stomach growled. It's too bad the boondoggle of a project even got programmed funding. Now, that's money partly wasted, tho *some* of the knowledge gained *might* be back fitted to the DDG-51 class/DDG-9x+ variants. But, the gun system apparently is too large to back fit.
Really,
I could start an event called "San Fran 2009.05" and park the page and announce that I will have a major pornograthon scheduled. Whether or not I ultimate line up the funding and get more than a few hundred visits is irrelevant. Same for high school kids who might want to register their enmity toward their high school or city, and celebrate their graduation by saying, "Marshville-2015" or some such name. Whether or not "Marshville" is aware that it has funding programmed to fix sewer and other infrastructure woes and plans to have a massive county-wide celebration in 2015 is irrelevant. They'd better snap up the page, start advertising on it, and have an activity that is worthy (or unworthy) of using the name.
What IS relevant is that the Olympics/their sponsors committed slept. If they had been doing due diligence, they'd have registered all of them, or asked the international arbitartion/relevant standards/registrars groups to blacklist names of existing trademark/sequential/periodic events and make trademark holders pay for the maintenance of such lists, and to park the pages if parking would be prudent.
For this:
"We certainly see Chicago2016.com as the logical default domain for our site, and we believe having someone else control it is misleading for people seeking information about Chicago's bid,' said Patrick Sandusky, a spokesman for Chicago 2016, a moniker protected by trademark.""
That is sheer stupidity. Their "natural right" or "logical default domain" is a hollow argument if they KNOW they have a name that is easy to preempt.
There are lots of people named "McDonald" who might want to open a website and a business named "McDonald" (but not "McDonalds"), and they'd get their asses sued off. Well, except in the UK, from what I understand, since a well-regarded/immensely wealthy/historical individual with the name would simply order McD's to surrender or quit business in the UK... There are some 100 people with my surname, and if i want to use solely the letters in my name, i'd likely be SOL. But, if I use my letters in combination with some product or idea or place, I'd have a better chance. If another hostile person of the same name or a country or entity wanted to challenge me, they'd have to shut up simply because there are many many surnames and people with common names, and they'd have to learn to differentiate their activity more creatively.
I have nothing against the Olympics in general. They just went to sleep at the wheel and they should just accept that. They can Say "Chicago-Olympics-2016", and have a more legit, more clear, more explanatory name that. The nerve of some people...
I wouldn't be surprised if some shill zings me as off-topic or inflammatory, but...
Is this the *same* outfit that got hundreds of millions, if not *billions* for the widely-ridiculed Bertholf National Security Cutter widely derided as a boondoggle and which might not see more copies built because that outfit couldn't coordinate with subcontractors to get the damned communications systems' TEMPEST security wiring in place?
Ok... how can *i* get just $50,000 of that cash without killing, blackmailing, or doing seances and runes?
Why is it that an asshole troll of some flagger/tagger/moderator can mod me as -1 off-topic when another person making the SAME GENERAL line of thought is *not*. This is further exemplifying the unfairness of allowing pricks to roam around on /. slamming down on people they view as a foe. Anytime someone is knocking someone down, that person should automatically be marked as their target's foe so they cannot get away with constantly off-topic-marking someone with whom they have an axe to grind.
If someone is marked off-topic, via a flag, then the flag mechanism for that thread/article should aggregate ALL the same-marked comments so that they can be matched and then flaggers/moderators behind the abuse can be identified and reprimanded. I PURPOSELY inserted my comment near or beneath the one I was commenting on, and some bastard felt it crucial to ding me anyway.
Worse, when general topics come up, invariably someone forks it and because so much inertia is behind an enlightened or funny comment that it does NOT get marked off-topic. A master /warning: diverging toward off-topic flag should be assigned so that those wanting to STAY on topic can see the indentation or color or flashing instead of having to wade through 2 or 5 pages to find something ON-TOPIC rather than funny to attach to.
Whoever this bastard is is lucky i'm not omnipotent...
Prevalent Clunker
They would like to add classical music/scoring to your live act...
ago...
Years ago, i was with my (shortly thereafter -ex) girlfriend, buying things for her. We were in a computer store, with a sales rep assisting us decide what to buy. She said, "Oh, then that way we can kill one bird with two stones." The sales guy and i looked at each other. In a low voice i said, "That will be ONE PISSED OFF BIRD, getting hit with TWO stones."
Thank you, GrpA! You said more succinctly and less belligerently what i had said. But, i think my violence/9/11 allusions are going to be manifested upon the US in under 5 years. This kind of careless manufacturing and fake-green-standards trumpet-blaring cannot go on forever.
TALKING about?
This kind of manufacturing and e-waste-dumping deserves NOTHING less than the most harsh, condemning, excoriating, almost-execution-mandating response. (Maybe the smartest people need to stop suggesting and start holding GUNS to the head of those who approve or scheme up manufacturing with no per-product materials-class recycling conduit...?) It's no accident or result of ignorance that inventors and designers in industrialized countries fail to design a recycling channel into their products' manufacturing, or that many governments don't mandate it, even at the increased cost of goods.
The way I see it is akin to 9/11 (and no, unlike what the wankers in DC say on TV, 9/11 is NOT about being jealous of us: it's mostly revenge and a wake-up call to conducts PAST, not about materialism... it's supposed to humiliate and change behavior, not wipe us out, but we don't seem to be heeding the lesson...): .... But, decades of screwing around abroad (militarily, politically, economically, etc.) instead of cleaning house at home is not much different than e-waste dumping products to India, Somalia, China and other places. For OUR immediate-gratification benefit, untold thousands die daily, and millions in a few years due to over production (yeh, i know a tiny bit about scale and maximum profits/minimal materials), less than stellar consumptions than planned, and ultimate waste disposal rather than fixing of the goods, others die. This karma will or should come back home to roost at the foot of any country (and, no, i'm not somehow absolving China's leadership woes, either) that is blase or careless about the impact.
There needs to be a national mandate to shut down ALL new inventions manufacturing if there is no globally-acceptable recycling conduit. If I draw or print, my papers can be recycled if no one wants them later. If if design CD holders, or tire rims, or medical equipment that is for few uses or one-time use, and it's contaminated beyond the typical chemicals, and it's likely to end up in a landfill, or in a sewer, the my products should be banned.
I BUY electronics, books, and other items which i expect to last me 5-10 years, and I take it on FAITH that our "manufacturing community" is concurrently strategising to recover and reintegrate the most offensive materials into new products. But, having lead, zinc, germanium, arsenic, cyanide-laden and other items -- even ship hulls with fuel and paint content that all end up smoldering, blackening skies, and poisoning fisheries... well, that is just plain reprehensible and needs to be taken in hand
You are sooooo A-pro-poooo.... I'll deliver a kit of Kennel-Ration and Gravy Train and the whole Kit and KaPoodle to yah.. woof woof...
The Anonymous Impaler will likely be uncategorically, alphabetically, flatteringly IMpaled for such treachery. Shame! Shame! (sarcasm off)
I can just see it now:
THIS technology is DA SHIT!
Much A Shit About Nuthin'
"It's a SHITTY job but someONE's gotta do IT"
Now that this has come up, I imagine we'll start to see at Moscone, the "First International GeoScatological Society Meeting"
These conferences will have a LOT of SHIT to talk about...
Before i prattle on...
I wonder how many other people have been fucked by their recruiters, only to end up demoralized, deserting, and getting into constant trouble all to their detriment. All in all, i came out OK, but some people do NOT. Just back in 2007, some 3 to 5 US soldiers a DAY were attempting suicide in Iraq, and some 2,000 + attempts were documented. Many more than that might have and not be diagnosed as having PTSD and other issues on return to the US.
For an interesting story of one soldier who had PTSD after serving in Iraq around 2007, listen to NPR (I think it was "This American Life" or another program about a US Solider who returned to the US and ended up joining his campus' Muslim group in order to deal with his trauma and personal issues that the US military could not directly help him cope with.
"How about if Virtual Rape 1.0" applied to lazy recruiters and unsympathetic R&O (Receiving & Outfitting)/Indoc personnel's victims? My story is not NEARLY as painful as that of those who were shot at or had to kill because of being under orders to be where a fight was going to take place, but...
In my 10th grade year (81-82:
-- I was a member of the Henry Nichols Detachment of the Young Marines in Galveston
-- I was a member of the Ball High Army Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps and in one year was promoted to Cadet Staff Sgt, was a member of the match rifle team, shot expert, and earned some 8 or 12 ribbons, made squad leader, and then moved on the San Jose
From 11th through 12th grades (82-83, 83-84), i:
-- was a member of the Milpitas High Navy JROTC unit, earning several more ribbons, and was on the color guard. We didn't have a match rifle team. Before being allowed to join the unit, I was forced to give up my rank attained in AJROTC, despite national rules stating that cadets could transfer to other branches' units and retain rank if military aptitude and other things were demonstrable. I was already intent on joining the USN (and did later). But, unit/teenager politics prevailed, and some cadets who outranked me and whom i don't recall actually joining the military didn't want me to appear from nowhere and outrank THEM. They even conspired to have the unit commander request me to remove my ribbons and not wear more than a few of them if they couldn't find a corresponding NJROTC ribbon or medal.
After putting up with that bullshit for 2 years, I only made it to cadet Ensign, and had I stayed at Ball High, I would have been in line for battalion commander, from what I was told by one of my best friends who remained in the unit until we graduated (same ages/grades, but i left Galveston). I was Mr. A-Jay Squared Away, and the YM detachment commander and the JROTC commander were both squabbling over who had me first and which of their unit events took precedence over the other.
When i signed up for the Delayed Entry program at the recruiting station at McKee Road in San Jose, the US Army, USMC AND the US Air Force recruiters were *begging* my recruiter (i had two of them, as one transitioned out) to let THEM have me, in trade for two or three of their own. They'd all seen or heard of me, and sometimes saw me in full uniform, with medals and ribbons, Corfam/Patent Leather shoes, sharp-crease ironed uniforms and so on.
I filled out ALL the required paperwork my recruiter presented to me. I was eligible for early advancement to E-3 upon successful graduation of boot camp. But, ahhh, while I was placed in Drill Company because I was a member of the aforementioned military-affiliated units, my recruiter dicked up and did NOT process nor fill out any paperwork recognizing my service in the various units, and being stupid, i just *accepted* that the USN would do the right thing. It was painful, watching my fellow booters/shipmates with their paperwork all filled out properly getting their 3 stripes, yet i had to excel and outperform dozens of peers for over a YEAR after arriving at USS Flint (AE-32).
After leaving San Diego aft
"Unless you just want to waste $30 to get an RFID chip that contains nothing but an ID number."
If it is good enough for DHS, then it should be good enough for air travel into the US, too, since it's good for ground transportation. Personally, if this is easier and cheaper than getting a passport, and *almost* as good, then the State Department/et al should go a step further and allow it to speedily replace or be equivalent TO the US passport. It should, however, infer RESIDENCE, not citizenship (since disclosure of citizenship could get one killed).
By knocking 'citizenship' off of the spec, then traveling students who abide by the terms of their visas could travel home more easily on their school holidays. Since EVERYTHING is subject to tampering, why not code these for anyone who properly applies and enrolls or lives in an approved condition/status.
Hell, for that matter, assign them to immigrant aliens or even illegal aliens who are seasonal workers. This would allow better statistics tracking to get a more sane handle on who is doing the back-breaking, thankless-task work "ordinary merkuns" would never "stoop" to do.
Countries need to get the hell out of the business of "citizenship" and get more into population distribution/new cities development management. For that matter, not to say "China", but the US needs to start spending some of that $10/month-alone-in-Iraq" money on fixing shitty US infrastructure, and razing old cities the way Mother Nature just pretty much RAZED Galveston.
[I used to live there, and when I revisited in Feb 08 it was no less anxiety-inducing, raggedy, and decrepit as it was when I left in 1982. Oh, there ARE new buildings, but the older era crap still there hurt my stomach, made me dizzy, and i was all too happy to not have to be there more than a couple of days. The tired-ass excuse "Well, that's the way it's always been" (hinting, leave it raggedy as it is; don't spend tourist/oil dollars for poor-ass people who won't appreciate it anyway?)]
I'm sick of hearing erudite/educated/trusted people talk about how expensive it would be to deprive existing cities of growth. Instead of Denver or Phoenix further expanding, just make new-model cities with all-new or updated code, free of the rife corruption and bullshit associated with existing cities. Too many existing cities have worn-out infrastructure, pockets of crime and poverty, and need to be razed, by Nature or by other means. There is too much wealth existing in the US for these blight, eye-sore, vomitous-inducing cities to persist like cankers on an eyeball.
Now, back to RFID, RFID could do all sorts of things, like help transit systems route vehicles (rail and non-rail) so that more efficient movement of passengers can be realized. I ride THREE transit systems (MUNI, BART, and AC Transit) to work. Muni is $45 a month for my adult fast pass. BART is pay by the ride, and costs me about $3.65 each way. AC is (for me) pay by the day and costs $1.50 each way, so when I'm close to broke, i walk on my evening leg home for 30 minutes to save $1.50.
When I ride in, I'm almost perpetually missing one 30-minute-periodicity bus by 2 minutes. Or, I arrive some 10-15 early. It's not convenient to use the more frequent buses because I end up having to walk 5 minutes and prefer to arrive at my desk almost as fresh as when I left the shower. In the evening i don't care, though. Now, with RFID, riders could plug the thing into a data port at the transit planning center web site, or at a kiosk, or if technology and sheer non-partisan will power could rise over stupidity and turf battles, a person on a bus could get near or plug in their card, tap a screen and adjust their route.
With lots of people *responsibly* using the system, then merely entering the reading range and tapping a wall board or console to confirm "Standard Daily Preferences" would alert the system to adjust the arrival, speed, and number of cars in a given train, and give priority to certain trains or lone (automated) train cars t
(Sorry to post here under your Score:5, but i scrolled for half-3/4 the screen and saw NOTHING but stuff about contintents arguments, arguably OFF-TOPIC..., but, anyway...)
Congresswoman Sanchez is taking a nice, fine step forward. Like you, my FIRST though was, "What about non-US citizens/residents? WE are NO better, yet no less worthy than other citizens of this planet. This is potentially a growing case of discrimination: Bring your currency-converted-to-dollars, but you and your property are up for grabs"
However, she needs to go a step further. The agents need to endure a burden. The seizure should not be permitted until they've duplicated the data and THEN they should return unmolested hardware and software to the owner/holder/carrier of said electronics. This will prevent or deter the agents from getting wily or crafty.
If we travel with cloning devices and brand-new, compatible target hard drives, the agents will either take all that, too, or claim they cannot trust neither the source nor targets.
I think I am now starting to wonder about her genuineness, or maybe she's trying a trial balloon to see whether or not the CBP will counter offer in order to accept public-acceptable levels of accountability and responsibility.
Currently (last time i read), police, doctors (mental/medical), and business leaders/professionals are to be provided some level of scrutiny/seizure protection, but what of the rest of the internationally-flying public? If I can fly INTO a non-US country and avoid this patriarchal molestation of my personal property and dignity, then why is it that the vaunted US of A feel it to be necessary? Oh, it can't stop swinging it's dick into a hornet's nest, living on the brink of bad karma while trying to balance that against benevolence.... Scary, and sad.
This might become an interesting business model:
Be sure to keep copies of applications from the past. Get investors to fund the operation of:
-- buying legit copies of all known software, past, present and future (as released)
-- hire an army of average to excellent developers (experienced and unorthodox, but semi-productive)
-- get them to collectively and/or in groups use the library of tools...
for the purpose of demonstrating in patent cases that pre-existing software was capable of doing what is currently being litigated. It should not matter that no "prior art" was generated or publicized. That the software was able to easily or with "reasonable coaxing" produce work that is claimed as "novel" should matter. This would prevent inane issuance/awarding of patents that are just crazy, like patents for stamping the back of a photo in the cell phone, or, in the computer, or printer before printing.
Some philanthropic person with an axe to grind at some big companies could hire people to do this, systematically taking apart certain assholes-of-corporations that patent to obstruct with no real novel gain in what the product or function is doing. So, whereas some small-time inventor could be using procedures or code from an arcane piece of software and otherwise being unmolested in court, big-time companies and lawyers would rather pretend that prior art is necessarily PUBLISHED.
One way to increase one's chances of creating clear, usable, patentable drawings is to consider using Punch! ViaCAD. I do. I love it. It's WAY cheaper than AutoCAD, tho it has a Mac-ish interface. But, once one spends some time getting used to the sparse interface, it's features, and staying on top of or involved with the forums, ViaCAD could be a GODSEND. For me, the graphics are much more soothing to my eye, and less cluttered than AutoCAD. AC for certain has thousands of features, but for many struggling, new entrepreneurs, AC is nothing less than an absolute overkill, comparing $98 vs ~$6,000. Even AC Lite, inventor and any Inventor Lite products won't be low enough in price for law-abiding entrepreneurs (people with very little money or next to NO money).
http://www.punchcad.com/products/viacad2d3dV6.htm
http://www.punchcad.com/full_store.html
Since my manual drafting skills are wanting and my handwriting is horrid, and ViaCAD runs fine in VirtualBox (in, sigh, vista) in my PCLinuxOS-based laptop, ViaCAD is a blessing for me, having paid $98 retail (at CompUSA, when they were still around), then only $15 for the upgrade and access to periodic patches. The ViaCAD product may be going away, being replaced by ViaCAD Pro, which used to cost over or around $500, which is being replaced by Shark. So, for the capabilities of ViaCAD and ViaCAD Pro (which I gather will price around $250-ish), it's hard to beat, if one is not looking for pure AutoCAD or cheap AC clones (which Autodesk *seems* to not be running out of business)
But, the main thing is, if you can IMAGINE it, use CAD, ANY CAD you can legally obtain, and design your work. Be novel, be neat, and try to use a 3-D printing shop if you can afford it. Beats going to a manufacture or representative of one that might force you to pay for expensive dies and molds for parts or parts of ideas that might never go into production.
Look around. Reenvision a product that has annoyed the hell out of you and left you with that feeling of "I can improve upon THAT". Sketch it on paper, measure it, think about it, then model it in 3D. I am someone who tries to model in 3D, using 2D as a base point. I don't like (generally) modeling non-simple things in 2D first. ViaCAD (or any decent 3D tool) will let a drafter start in 2D or 3D and extend/extrapolate the model iteratively to avoid matters of constant re-measuring.
Yeh, purists will say "LEARN 2D FIRST!", but some of us are simply, unabashedly wired to think in 3D and struggle or chafe being forced to do in 2D what modern tools permit in 3D (modeling, flattening, obtaining centers of gravity, weight/mass, materials information assignment, trimming, translating/moving, spinning/rotating) that are a ROYAL PITA in 2D-centric drafting.
As for your ideas, don't sit in a coffee shop where a sensitive idea you work on gets stolen from behind your back. Document your ideas. Share with NO ONE you don't trust. If you practice, in the open, do it on stuff of no consequence. Guard you backpack or laptop. If you cannot afford to patent, then BE SURE to consider visiting a Small Business Administration office, a SCORE advisor, industry trade shows, learning about non-disclosure agreements, intellectual property, and ALSO consider -- if all else fails -- publishing your ideas as prior art measures. Publish no only on the web (if you feel you cannot afford the risk of those late-night inventor informercials), but at a public place, in print, and distribute to put (voluntarily or involuntarily) others that YOUR idea might be of interest to them, but that YOU have copyright on it. For damages protection, register with the US Copyright Office/Library of Congress.
If you are a student, working on a project, consider affixing copyright notices on your drawings so your instructors and classmates cannot lay claim to your ORIGINAL work or your novel modifications. If it's a team project,
I offer names for this project:
Clustered Crawfish
Coagulated Crawdad
Conjugated Crayfish
(LOL: captcha is: "condom" (and, yes, i took a screenshot of it...))
NPR, BBC, PRI, APM, MC Lehrer Ndws Hour, TOTN, TTBOOK, Science Friday...
Several phones, such as the V 402-SH (from year 2004) enabled the user to annotate pics shot via the phone. That is only halfway to the other side of the photo. Sharp also had in Dec 04 cellphones with haptics, with auto rotating displays, and with displays that turned silver ro normal an Harajuku girls could pretty-up without looking for a separate mirror. I saw/felt these first-hand in Tokyo. The USPTO better wake up and stop taking greed money, or else...