I think I can cope with the extra limbs and pre-hensile tail. While certain evolutionary changes did reduce us to four-limbed tail-less creatures, I suppose there could be certain circumstances where at the least we could've kept the tail. The notions about reproduction and the brain are a bit odd.
As others have pointed out, the human brain would make most logical sense in the head. Being near the sensory organs is rather important to ensure fast response to external stimuli. Also, the chest cavity makes for a lousy place for brain storage. I guess the ribs and like could've evolved differently, but it just doesn't seem like an effective barrier. It is also mid-mass so your brain would get bounced around with just normal moving and sleeping. Not really a great idea. At least in the head it is fairly protected from that sort of stress.
The reproductive organs...well I just would not want to think about the trouble this would cause. Our mouths already have a confusing time with the eating and breathing. There are problems with this system mind you. Our bodies don't seem to like the idea of eating and breathing much at the same time. Also, I think I would rather have my less pleasant bodily functions sharing space with my reproductive organs than with place where I eat, drink and breath. Also, reproductive organs would have bad protection in your mouth. Besides the dangers of self mutilation (I mean imagine if this thing bit its own balls), the area is grossly exposed. The mouth is technically an external area that receives a great deal more bacteria then your lower regions.
For any major change to have occured in the evolutionary path, something major would have to happen to the environment. Environment played a huge roll in our evolutionary path, and I would like to think that genetics, natural selection and all that fun stuff worked together to produce the best form possible.
I recommend looking over the list of "uncensored" articles and compare some of them to the current versions on wikipedia. Several of the articles contain similar information to their supposed predecessors and you might find quite a few of the current versions contain more information, have better quality and some are actually NPOV unlike the supposedly censored or removed articles.
This seems like little more then a few people crying. Hell, read their "article" on Jimbo Wales and you'll notice they do nothing but complain about him and then mention the Brian Peppers article at the end and even insult him while their at it. Seriously, would these guys like a little cheese with that whine...
I mean I know some people are out to "get" him, but aren't most those people gamers who are fed up with his propaganda and FUD that does nothing but harm video games by exploiting the gullibility of 3/4 of America? I mean seriously, it is like he is saying, "The Bar is mad at me because I won, so now they are not playing fair and trying to take me down." And if that isn't bad enough he is adding to it, "It is all because those mean lawyers for the video game companies don't like me." He even lies about his removal from the Alabama case (again). Slashdot reported after he "left" that the judge pretty much said, "Leave or I will have you removed." I mean it is like saying you quit a job when they gave you the "Quit or get fired" ultimatum.
I really wish someone could finally bring Jack down, but in the end, it seems he might manage to do that on his own. Someday he will pick a fight with the wrong guy, and saying "I'm a lawyer, and I will sue," will not be enough to save him as they beat him down. Maybe, in a bit of irony, whoever does it can use the video games made me do it defense. In memory of the late and not-so-great JT, which would become the dedication for the next GTA after his demise.
...they stopped using terrorism as an excuse to create this privacy and liberty restricting laws. Now we are going after the child pornographers. Something both the dems and reps can agree on I guess.
Do you know me or my ears? I didn't think so. I actually have pretty good ears for someone who has been blasting them with loud music for the better part of 10 yrs or so (around the time I found out how high that volume can go).
Your argument is sort of invalidated by commenting that you use an iRiver. Short of using the default Apple firmware, I have absolutely no interaction with the iTunes PC program or the iTunes music store. To comment my post as flamebait only shows you to be an OSS fan flaming the Mac related article.
My points are rather good. Using a nearly 3 yr old article to say a program sucks is hardly a good idea. Tell me how many times has the firmware for the iPod been updated and the iTunes program as a hole. Quite a few, with several fixes made in that time. The article itself is Flamebait and FUD.
Ogg does sound bad. Either by design or poor implementation I cannot say for sure. But I do believe the sound is typically inferior to that of an MP3, and I cannot attest for WMA since I refuse to use that format all together.
As I stated before, I have never used the iTunes PC program. The reason people do not like iTunes has nothing to do with it being a "gateway" to the store. I don't like it because I cannot copy stuff back down, I also do not like the interface and various other issues. I use Anapod, which I paid for, because I like the program and use the streaming features it provides. Before that I used ephpod, because it is probably the best freely available program for iPod's in Windows.
As another quick note, I have used amaroK and seriously did not like it that much. Maybe I just prefer the simple stylings of bare players, and the fact I do not interface any of my MP3 players with my Linux machines has something to do with it.
Rockbox is a godsend for those of use that don't want drm laden music, but do want a wealth of features and codecs.
DRM laden music? I will bet you that over 75% of music loaded on iPods is in a DRM free format. I will also bet you that most that same music is in MP3 format with absolutely no DRM. Your wealth of features? Please name something that is a "Feature" not available on the iPod. This does not mean name codecs because you made your own category for that one.
So to start, iTunes sucked in 2003? The only article the submitter had going to be 3 yrs old this year. The other site really doesn't say anything except, I hate paying money for music. So great examples about the lack of iTunes.
Really, if you want to advertise the firmware that might void your warranty (not went EULA reading yet), for some added features, then go ahead. I honestly think OGG audio sounds HORRID. But please do not post your own little attack with the article.
So are they trying to tax items you download if the company has a physical presence in the state or no matter what? The old brick and mortar way of solving taxation, which is how catalog orders were handle since catalogs came about, is something states have been trying to squash for years. Seriously, if they are following the old model, I really have no problem with it. Many of us are already dodging sales tax on the purchases of items from Amazon and the like.
Now many states have tried to get around the old method of taxing by creating "Use Tax." I saw this nifty little item when I filed my taxes this year. They basically want to charge you sales tax on items you purchased online and, in some cases, other states. The latter one bothers me because it is absurd to be taxed twice simple because you either moved or purchased items while travelling on vacation. The initial one is almost as absurd, since it relies heavily on them getting the truth out of you. If you do not claim to purchase anything online then it is sort of hard for them to say you did, short of tracking all your CC purchases.
The states have complained for ages it seems about the loss of money from online purchases. I personally think that while states might lose money, it actually helps overall economy. If people have to pay a few dollars less and not pay tax on an item (especially higher priced ones), they are more likely to purchase the item. Now if this item requires disposable or extra items (i.e. batteries, DVDs, etc.) you are more likely to get people purchasing those locally as well. In the end, the states still get money, they may just miss out on a small portion of it every now and then. Instead of sales taxing us all to death, raise liquor, tobacco, or hotel taxes to cover expenses. I enjoy the hotel taxes because I do not have to pay my local governments, the tourists do.
Minorities that aren't gay maybe. These same people who claim tolerance do a 180 when it becomes a gay thing. And for each person who has some sign of carrying about minorities there are probably at least 2 (well maybe 1.5) people who have no care at all. Racism and bigotry are alive and well in America, it just has taken on some new names and new victims.
I have been wanting a Mac for a long time. I actually am hoping I can get one before it is all Intel because I am actually in love with the Power architecture more than anything. I mean I can tweak Linux a lot to get a pretty looking Desktop. But I digress.
My question concerns the notion of dual booting that keeps coming up. I admit it is annoying and is the only reason my Windows PC doesn't run two OSes. Of course the Linux laptop helps fix that problem. So my question is, what about wine? I find it hard to believe that it hasn't been made to work in the world of Mac OS X. It runs many programs and even a few games will run in it with some work. So why either bother with dual booting?
I will admit, though, that wine and really any software emulation inevitably runs slower than a dual boot will. This point is something the newer article seems to miss. There is also the concern of 3D graphics in emulation. Wine works alright, but it never quite matches performance of running a game in Windows and many games are just never playable. I used VMWare software ages ago, but I am not sure it would be able to handle 3D games at all, and VirtualPC is horrible period. It runs slower then VMWare in my experience.
No, but it does surprise me you would post such a "preachy" item while doing literally the same thing yourself. You sound like this: "The NYT is liberal media, they talk bad about Bush and never say anything nice. FoxNews does the same thing in reverse." Did you even think that the news might be legitimate. Is there some degree of bias in media? Yes. However, the fact is that it is not as widespread and blatant as everyone makes it out to be.
Go read The Washington Post and see if you can name which way it leans. If you read it for a few weeks you might find yourself rather confused on that question. I have heard just about everyone say it leans each possible direction. I have found the people who say it is right-leaning are often people who are on the left and do not like what the paper is telling them. The opposite is true for those who say it is left-leaning because they are right and do not agree with what the paper is telling them.
The problem is not the media being right or left and who listens to it, so much as it is people not agreeing with what they are hearing, so they attach labels to justify their own ignorance of the facts. Surely G.W. cannot be wrong if we say the sources are "leftist media", and surely G.W. cannot be right if we say the sources are "rightist media".
But of course, I hope you have an open enough mind to challenge your view on traditional media because right now you do not sound much better then the "right wing nuts" and "left wing loonies" to which you refer.
The wonderful patent they show is not a patent, but a Published Application. How do I know this? The number starts 2006. This means it is a Pre-Grant Publication (PGPUB) that was published in 2006. If it were a Patent it would have a number in sequential order with other patents, which would make it something along the lines of the high 6 millions or low 7 millions for a number (assuming recent approval).
So stop the panicking, stop the whining, and check the facts of articles and summaries on slashdot before blindly crying foul.
We are talking about 98% of patents containing some error. Now, 2% have serious errors and that is something that should be addressed but the rest of it is just bullshit. First off, what are these errors? Are they small grammar and spelling issues? Hell, half the people on slashdot cannot use the English language properly. Let's put this into perspective. We are talking about finding an error in a specification to a patent which can sometimes run 50 pages in length. As everyone is so fond of pointing out, the Patent Office has a large backlog of patents and there are complaints of patents getting issued that should not be. So imagine how poor examination would be if they needed to proofread the entire thing for grammar and spelling errors which have no real effect on the patent itself.
Let us also remember that the people who examine these patents are Engineers and Scientists. I do not know how many Engineers and Scientist you know, but many of the ones I do are not usually the best with the grammar and spelling; I sometimes have to read sentences several times over before I believe it sounds right, and even then it is usually still wrong in some way. The fact is the USPTO does not have the manpower or the time to be fixing every grammatical mistake that may occur in a patent, and I would venture a guess that it is frowned upon because it takes away from the actual prosecution on the merits of the application.
As a final note, many patents come in from Asian countries that are simply translated by machine and not proofread to their fullest extent. If a translation of this sort is very poor then examiners can inform the applicant that examination is not possible because of the poor grammar and request a more appropriate translation. I really wouldn't be surprised if many of the other patent offices have similar problems with minor errors.
Re:The Doug Flutie of Apple rumors
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iCell in the Works?
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I think he is talking about the Hail Mary Flutie through to Gerard Phelan to help BC beat Miami. You know, in college, where the real football is played. As for his pro career, he started in the USFL, crossed the picket lines in the NFL during the 1987 strike then started in the CFL in 1990 and moved back to the NFL in the late 90s.
The trick is can you combine any of those to create prior art? Sure I could do a search for two terms that are typically disjoint and get thousands of references, but they key is making it prior art. You cannot just combine Reference A with Reference B without some sort of teaching. They key is, it has to be reasonable to combine two items. Just because the two exists doesn't mean they would be obvious to combine.
SCO v. the World is copyright infringement not patent infringement. This is a whole other beast unto itself, and one that is quite possibly in as bad of shape as the Patent System. I mean the term for copyright alone are enough to make you cringe.
You are misusing the term submarine patent. It was not hidden away from human eyes. The patent was published on issuance 14 years ago. In order to be, "submarine patenting" a patent must be unpublished and suddenly appear in a manner as to "surprise" the market.
I would venture a guess that many companies go patent hunting before creating new products, and if Toyota were to perform such a practice they surely would have noticed this one in their search (you would think). There are several possible reasons for a five-year delay in a lawsuit.
They would need to first show some degree of infringement. This would require them to examine the specifications of the Toyota Prius. The next step would be to contact Toyota and offer then licensing. You do not jump straight to court. Afterall, why rush into a court case when the company might be reasonable and notice the infringement is there? Believe it or not, this does happen on occassion. After giving reasonable time for a response, a few months to a year probably, you would then begin collecting your evidence and filing your briefs.
So I would say 5 yrs for this entire process is not completely ridiculous.
20 years from the filing date of the application. I do not think it is as low as 5 anywhere in the world. This is of course only for Utility Patents. I think Design Patents are 14 years and I have no clue about Plant Patents.
EPO and for that matter every country (or at least the vast majority) use a first to file system. So an inventor often gets punished because big company X can file before they can since they have the money to start what is a very costly procedure. In the US Patent System, it is a first to invent. If two entities have filed for the same patent an interference procedure is followed where the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI) will hold a hearing and make a determination based on the facts presented by both who was the first to actually invent the application.
Under the US Patent System, it counts as prior art if it was published by "others" (this means any person or group of persons different from the applicant) before the invention of the device. This is called 102(a) and they can swear behind this using the whole first to invent idea. Initially, items are considered "invented" when tey are filed. It also counts if a publication is made or it is in "use" (in the terms of in the public already) by anyone (including applicants) more then 1 year prior to the earliest US filing date. This is a 102(b) and a so-called "statutory bar". There is no way to swear behind these kinds of references. The final one that is commonly used is if a published US application or Patent was filed before the filing date of the current invention by another (this also applies to WIPO filing dates). This is called a 102(e) and like 102(a) is based on invention date so it can also be sworn behind.
I think you need to clarify the prototype being officially made statement. I cannot speak certainly for EPO or other patent offices, but the general idea is that the item described in the Patent Application has actually been invented. As such, there had better be a prototype of some sort sitting around somewhere. Most all patent laws center around a publication or existance of an item that is known to the public in same.
This is actually a fairly expected answer. They are working on a product for Nintendo, who is notorious for having quality games for their consoles but not necessarily the flashiest, prettiest games. So we should have seen a comment along these lines. Now, it is also sort of intersting to look at it from another angle. Here you have a chance to create a product that by looking at the numbers you would suspect is slower and underperforming, while in reality it is actually better then its competitors.
I think it is also good that Nintendo is not (nor would I expect them ever to) trying to sell their console on statistics alone. The hardware configuration and statitistics of the 360 and PS3 were constantly being touted by M$ and $ony for how great the systems are. It is also possible they are losing focus by trying to extend the grasp of gaming systems and turning them into full out "media centers."
Nintendo is not worrying about all the bells and whistles, but is instead designing a gaming console to be used for gaming. By keeping your attention focused on that single task, you do not need to throw tons of processing power and ridiculous hardware into the machine so it can perform its specialized task.
It would be intersting if during this experience ATI managed to come up with a nice, more efficient graphics processing design that could still be powerful and useful in a PC computing environment. The power drains that some graphics cards seem to pull nowadays is getting crazy and it is always fun to laugh at the cards so big they take an extra slot just to cool them.
Deliver and provide are technically synonyms of produce and the usage isn't totally horrible. The problem is people get stuck on the idea of produce having a more stringent definition then it really does.
Technically that makes it a power supply. The word power supply actually encompasses a few things and is mostly meant to be used to avoid having to explain to those who are not tech literate was an inverter, converter, or a rectifier...well I think most EE's I know even call rectifiers (AC-DC conversion), AC to DC converters, but then again most of us hated power courses.
Yes, this device boils down to be nothing more then a DC-DC voltage converter, but it is a power supply since its job is to take the input voltage and properly convert it to supply the right voltage to the rights lines. Well that is enough talk about power for one day...
You can easily get a wall-plug AC-DC (12V) adapter. It will look no worse then some of the standard AC-DC wall-plugs you get and a good one should not obstruct any outlets. Surely, this is better then a mini-ITX with a huge PS or a brick sitting on the floor.
Both companies were at one time the main producer of Unix workstations (Sun during the 90s, Apple today)
Ok, truthfully these numbers are skewed, but Sun STILL is the main producer of Unix Workstations. Why is this number skewed? Because Apple does not produce Unix Workstations. OS X is a BSD variant, and we all know that is not Unix. Secondly, it is quite possible in the scheme of things Apple computers don't get classified as workstations, but as personal or desktop computers. They do seem to differentiate this in numbers. Don't forget there are HP and IBM workstations out there running Unix (HP-UX anyone?).
Their Unix based operating systems are open source.
Umm, I do not think that OS X is considered open source. If this were the case, don't you think someone would have dragged OS X to x86 before Apple did. As for Sun, they just recently opened Solaris and that was mostly a move to encourage OSS people to use more Sun items.
Both were founded in the context of Stanford university.
How you gather this one? Jobs is a dropout from Reeds College and Wozniak is a dropout of UC-Berkley. The closest I can figure is they attended a Homebrew Computer Club in Palo Alto. Not quite stanford but I can see your confusion.
Both are based in California.
You just joined a great many companies together with that one. California has a huge computer industry and several companies based in and around silicon valley. Hardly a connection.
Both are strong supporters of Java.
Again, so are a lot of people. Of course since Java is Sun's bread and butter, I would surely hope they are "strong supporters" of it. As for Apple, I do not know how strong their support of it is.
There are some connections between Apple and Sun, but I think most connections people are going to find are highly coincidental and not note-worthy.
I am reminded of a time when the Playstation 2 came out and the buzz around DVD players. I also recall my first two DVD players. The first was in a computer and was considerably cheaper then stand-alone players or the PS2. The one to follow was a Philips DVD player which cost around $100 and was also cheaper then the PS2. I already had a Dreamcast, so why did I need a PS2?
Let us speed forward to the present day. I have an HDTV, 7 DVD players (2 in desktops, 2 in laptops, 1 in a media player, 1 PS2, and my Philips) and a job that actually allows me to spend money on things (including my massive DVD collection). I have enjoyed the high quality images and sound of HDTV and enjoy the thought of a format capable of giving me movies that way, but something is wrong.
First, there is the format war. Some of us are two young to remember Betamax and VHS, but this battle took some time to resolve and in the end was settled by the porn industry (or so the legend goes). Here we are with another format war and suggestions that a victor could take 10 years to determine (of course history says choose against Sony). Do I want to invest money in a player that could be obsolete in a few years? Not really. I am not convinced quality of sound or image will be improved enough for me to warrant buying a player and re-building a movie collection.
You see, some people still record movies on regular old film. Some now use digital technology, but even then it is not always HD cameras doing the recording. The actual number of available items truly recorded in HD is so limited that the resolution bump will not help many movies, and might even hurt some. This is especially true for older movies, we all notice it; the grain you see on your TV and holes that appeared as the film aged. Sound is almost equally pointless for many of these same reasons; I actually have DVDs with nothing but Mono or Stereo tracks.
There are also the quality concerns and lack of features that are often inherent on first generation products. Don't we all remember those 1st generation DVD players and how wonderfully they have stood the test of time. So the PS3 might seem tempting at first, but in the end separate HD-DVD and Blu-Ray drives in your PC might (and most likely will) cost less. Now a real fascinating trick that would send my entire complaint down the tube (well the format war at least), is if someone could/would develop a player with a single drive capable of playing both formats. Oh how nice that dream would be.
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I think I can cope with the extra limbs and pre-hensile tail. While certain evolutionary changes did reduce us to four-limbed tail-less creatures, I suppose there could be certain circumstances where at the least we could've kept the tail. The notions about reproduction and the brain are a bit odd.
As others have pointed out, the human brain would make most logical sense in the head. Being near the sensory organs is rather important to ensure fast response to external stimuli. Also, the chest cavity makes for a lousy place for brain storage. I guess the ribs and like could've evolved differently, but it just doesn't seem like an effective barrier. It is also mid-mass so your brain would get bounced around with just normal moving and sleeping. Not really a great idea. At least in the head it is fairly protected from that sort of stress.
The reproductive organs...well I just would not want to think about the trouble this would cause. Our mouths already have a confusing time with the eating and breathing. There are problems with this system mind you. Our bodies don't seem to like the idea of eating and breathing much at the same time. Also, I think I would rather have my less pleasant bodily functions sharing space with my reproductive organs than with place where I eat, drink and breath. Also, reproductive organs would have bad protection in your mouth. Besides the dangers of self mutilation (I mean imagine if this thing bit its own balls), the area is grossly exposed. The mouth is technically an external area that receives a great deal more bacteria then your lower regions.
For any major change to have occured in the evolutionary path, something major would have to happen to the environment. Environment played a huge roll in our evolutionary path, and I would like to think that genetics, natural selection and all that fun stuff worked together to produce the best form possible.
I recommend looking over the list of "uncensored" articles and compare some of them to the current versions on wikipedia. Several of the articles contain similar information to their supposed predecessors and you might find quite a few of the current versions contain more information, have better quality and some are actually NPOV unlike the supposedly censored or removed articles.
This seems like little more then a few people crying. Hell, read their "article" on Jimbo Wales and you'll notice they do nothing but complain about him and then mention the Brian Peppers article at the end and even insult him while their at it. Seriously, would these guys like a little cheese with that whine...
I mean I know some people are out to "get" him, but aren't most those people gamers who are fed up with his propaganda and FUD that does nothing but harm video games by exploiting the gullibility of 3/4 of America? I mean seriously, it is like he is saying, "The Bar is mad at me because I won, so now they are not playing fair and trying to take me down." And if that isn't bad enough he is adding to it, "It is all because those mean lawyers for the video game companies don't like me." He even lies about his removal from the Alabama case (again). Slashdot reported after he "left" that the judge pretty much said, "Leave or I will have you removed." I mean it is like saying you quit a job when they gave you the "Quit or get fired" ultimatum.
I really wish someone could finally bring Jack down, but in the end, it seems he might manage to do that on his own. Someday he will pick a fight with the wrong guy, and saying "I'm a lawyer, and I will sue," will not be enough to save him as they beat him down. Maybe, in a bit of irony, whoever does it can use the video games made me do it defense. In memory of the late and not-so-great JT, which would become the dedication for the next GTA after his demise.
...they stopped using terrorism as an excuse to create this privacy and liberty restricting laws. Now we are going after the child pornographers. Something both the dems and reps can agree on I guess.
Do you know me or my ears? I didn't think so. I actually have pretty good ears for someone who has been blasting them with loud music for the better part of 10 yrs or so (around the time I found out how high that volume can go).
Your argument is sort of invalidated by commenting that you use an iRiver. Short of using the default Apple firmware, I have absolutely no interaction with the iTunes PC program or the iTunes music store. To comment my post as flamebait only shows you to be an OSS fan flaming the Mac related article.
My points are rather good. Using a nearly 3 yr old article to say a program sucks is hardly a good idea. Tell me how many times has the firmware for the iPod been updated and the iTunes program as a hole. Quite a few, with several fixes made in that time. The article itself is Flamebait and FUD.
Ogg does sound bad. Either by design or poor implementation I cannot say for sure. But I do believe the sound is typically inferior to that of an MP3, and I cannot attest for WMA since I refuse to use that format all together.
As I stated before, I have never used the iTunes PC program. The reason people do not like iTunes has nothing to do with it being a "gateway" to the store. I don't like it because I cannot copy stuff back down, I also do not like the interface and various other issues. I use Anapod, which I paid for, because I like the program and use the streaming features it provides. Before that I used ephpod, because it is probably the best freely available program for iPod's in Windows.
As another quick note, I have used amaroK and seriously did not like it that much. Maybe I just prefer the simple stylings of bare players, and the fact I do not interface any of my MP3 players with my Linux machines has something to do with it.
Rockbox is a godsend for those of use that don't want drm laden music, but do want a wealth of features and codecs.
DRM laden music? I will bet you that over 75% of music loaded on iPods is in a DRM free format. I will also bet you that most that same music is in MP3 format with absolutely no DRM. Your wealth of features? Please name something that is a "Feature" not available on the iPod. This does not mean name codecs because you made your own category for that one.
So to start, iTunes sucked in 2003? The only article the submitter had going to be 3 yrs old this year. The other site really doesn't say anything except, I hate paying money for music. So great examples about the lack of iTunes.
Really, if you want to advertise the firmware that might void your warranty (not went EULA reading yet), for some added features, then go ahead. I honestly think OGG audio sounds HORRID. But please do not post your own little attack with the article.
So are they trying to tax items you download if the company has a physical presence in the state or no matter what? The old brick and mortar way of solving taxation, which is how catalog orders were handle since catalogs came about, is something states have been trying to squash for years. Seriously, if they are following the old model, I really have no problem with it. Many of us are already dodging sales tax on the purchases of items from Amazon and the like.
Now many states have tried to get around the old method of taxing by creating "Use Tax." I saw this nifty little item when I filed my taxes this year. They basically want to charge you sales tax on items you purchased online and, in some cases, other states. The latter one bothers me because it is absurd to be taxed twice simple because you either moved or purchased items while travelling on vacation. The initial one is almost as absurd, since it relies heavily on them getting the truth out of you. If you do not claim to purchase anything online then it is sort of hard for them to say you did, short of tracking all your CC purchases.
The states have complained for ages it seems about the loss of money from online purchases. I personally think that while states might lose money, it actually helps overall economy. If people have to pay a few dollars less and not pay tax on an item (especially higher priced ones), they are more likely to purchase the item. Now if this item requires disposable or extra items (i.e. batteries, DVDs, etc.) you are more likely to get people purchasing those locally as well. In the end, the states still get money, they may just miss out on a small portion of it every now and then. Instead of sales taxing us all to death, raise liquor, tobacco, or hotel taxes to cover expenses. I enjoy the hotel taxes because I do not have to pay my local governments, the tourists do.
Minorities that aren't gay maybe. These same people who claim tolerance do a 180 when it becomes a gay thing. And for each person who has some sign of carrying about minorities there are probably at least 2 (well maybe 1.5) people who have no care at all. Racism and bigotry are alive and well in America, it just has taken on some new names and new victims.
That is when this was applied for. Since we haven't seen it yet, I would not put a lot of hope (or concern?) into this showing up anytime soon.
I have been wanting a Mac for a long time. I actually am hoping I can get one before it is all Intel because I am actually in love with the Power architecture more than anything. I mean I can tweak Linux a lot to get a pretty looking Desktop. But I digress.
My question concerns the notion of dual booting that keeps coming up. I admit it is annoying and is the only reason my Windows PC doesn't run two OSes. Of course the Linux laptop helps fix that problem. So my question is, what about wine? I find it hard to believe that it hasn't been made to work in the world of Mac OS X. It runs many programs and even a few games will run in it with some work. So why either bother with dual booting?
I will admit, though, that wine and really any software emulation inevitably runs slower than a dual boot will. This point is something the newer article seems to miss. There is also the concern of 3D graphics in emulation. Wine works alright, but it never quite matches performance of running a game in Windows and many games are just never playable. I used VMWare software ages ago, but I am not sure it would be able to handle 3D games at all, and VirtualPC is horrible period. It runs slower then VMWare in my experience.
So wouldn't DB make more sense the emu?
No, but it does surprise me you would post such a "preachy" item while doing literally the same thing yourself. You sound like this: "The NYT is liberal media, they talk bad about Bush and never say anything nice. FoxNews does the same thing in reverse." Did you even think that the news might be legitimate. Is there some degree of bias in media? Yes. However, the fact is that it is not as widespread and blatant as everyone makes it out to be.
Go read The Washington Post and see if you can name which way it leans. If you read it for a few weeks you might find yourself rather confused on that question. I have heard just about everyone say it leans each possible direction. I have found the people who say it is right-leaning are often people who are on the left and do not like what the paper is telling them. The opposite is true for those who say it is left-leaning because they are right and do not agree with what the paper is telling them.
The problem is not the media being right or left and who listens to it, so much as it is people not agreeing with what they are hearing, so they attach labels to justify their own ignorance of the facts. Surely G.W. cannot be wrong if we say the sources are "leftist media", and surely G.W. cannot be right if we say the sources are "rightist media".
But of course, I hope you have an open enough mind to challenge your view on traditional media because right now you do not sound much better then the "right wing nuts" and "left wing loonies" to which you refer.
The wonderful patent they show is not a patent, but a Published Application. How do I know this? The number starts 2006. This means it is a Pre-Grant Publication (PGPUB) that was published in 2006. If it were a Patent it would have a number in sequential order with other patents, which would make it something along the lines of the high 6 millions or low 7 millions for a number (assuming recent approval).
So stop the panicking, stop the whining, and check the facts of articles and summaries on slashdot before blindly crying foul.
We are talking about 98% of patents containing some error. Now, 2% have serious errors and that is something that should be addressed but the rest of it is just bullshit. First off, what are these errors? Are they small grammar and spelling issues? Hell, half the people on slashdot cannot use the English language properly. Let's put this into perspective. We are talking about finding an error in a specification to a patent which can sometimes run 50 pages in length. As everyone is so fond of pointing out, the Patent Office has a large backlog of patents and there are complaints of patents getting issued that should not be. So imagine how poor examination would be if they needed to proofread the entire thing for grammar and spelling errors which have no real effect on the patent itself.
Let us also remember that the people who examine these patents are Engineers and Scientists. I do not know how many Engineers and Scientist you know, but many of the ones I do are not usually the best with the grammar and spelling; I sometimes have to read sentences several times over before I believe it sounds right, and even then it is usually still wrong in some way. The fact is the USPTO does not have the manpower or the time to be fixing every grammatical mistake that may occur in a patent, and I would venture a guess that it is frowned upon because it takes away from the actual prosecution on the merits of the application.
As a final note, many patents come in from Asian countries that are simply translated by machine and not proofread to their fullest extent. If a translation of this sort is very poor then examiners can inform the applicant that examination is not possible because of the poor grammar and request a more appropriate translation. I really wouldn't be surprised if many of the other patent offices have similar problems with minor errors.
I think he is talking about the Hail Mary Flutie through to Gerard Phelan to help BC beat Miami. You know, in college, where the real football is played. As for his pro career, he started in the USFL, crossed the picket lines in the NFL during the 1987 strike then started in the CFL in 1990 and moved back to the NFL in the late 90s.
The trick is can you combine any of those to create prior art? Sure I could do a search for two terms that are typically disjoint and get thousands of references, but they key is making it prior art. You cannot just combine Reference A with Reference B without some sort of teaching. They key is, it has to be reasonable to combine two items. Just because the two exists doesn't mean they would be obvious to combine.
SCO v. the World is copyright infringement not patent infringement. This is a whole other beast unto itself, and one that is quite possibly in as bad of shape as the Patent System. I mean the term for copyright alone are enough to make you cringe.
You are misusing the term submarine patent. It was not hidden away from human eyes. The patent was published on issuance 14 years ago. In order to be, "submarine patenting" a patent must be unpublished and suddenly appear in a manner as to "surprise" the market.
I would venture a guess that many companies go patent hunting before creating new products, and if Toyota were to perform such a practice they surely would have noticed this one in their search (you would think). There are several possible reasons for a five-year delay in a lawsuit.
They would need to first show some degree of infringement. This would require them to examine the specifications of the Toyota Prius. The next step would be to contact Toyota and offer then licensing. You do not jump straight to court. Afterall, why rush into a court case when the company might be reasonable and notice the infringement is there? Believe it or not, this does happen on occassion. After giving reasonable time for a response, a few months to a year probably, you would then begin collecting your evidence and filing your briefs.
So I would say 5 yrs for this entire process is not completely ridiculous.
20 years from the filing date of the application. I do not think it is as low as 5 anywhere in the world. This is of course only for Utility Patents. I think Design Patents are 14 years and I have no clue about Plant Patents.
EPO and for that matter every country (or at least the vast majority) use a first to file system. So an inventor often gets punished because big company X can file before they can since they have the money to start what is a very costly procedure. In the US Patent System, it is a first to invent. If two entities have filed for the same patent an interference procedure is followed where the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI) will hold a hearing and make a determination based on the facts presented by both who was the first to actually invent the application.
Under the US Patent System, it counts as prior art if it was published by "others" (this means any person or group of persons different from the applicant) before the invention of the device. This is called 102(a) and they can swear behind this using the whole first to invent idea. Initially, items are considered "invented" when tey are filed. It also counts if a publication is made or it is in "use" (in the terms of in the public already) by anyone (including applicants) more then 1 year prior to the earliest US filing date. This is a 102(b) and a so-called "statutory bar". There is no way to swear behind these kinds of references. The final one that is commonly used is if a published US application or Patent was filed before the filing date of the current invention by another (this also applies to WIPO filing dates). This is called a 102(e) and like 102(a) is based on invention date so it can also be sworn behind.
I think you need to clarify the prototype being officially made statement. I cannot speak certainly for EPO or other patent offices, but the general idea is that the item described in the Patent Application has actually been invented. As such, there had better be a prototype of some sort sitting around somewhere. Most all patent laws center around a publication or existance of an item that is known to the public in same.
This is actually a fairly expected answer. They are working on a product for Nintendo, who is notorious for having quality games for their consoles but not necessarily the flashiest, prettiest games. So we should have seen a comment along these lines. Now, it is also sort of intersting to look at it from another angle. Here you have a chance to create a product that by looking at the numbers you would suspect is slower and underperforming, while in reality it is actually better then its competitors.
I think it is also good that Nintendo is not (nor would I expect them ever to) trying to sell their console on statistics alone. The hardware configuration and statitistics of the 360 and PS3 were constantly being touted by M$ and $ony for how great the systems are. It is also possible they are losing focus by trying to extend the grasp of gaming systems and turning them into full out "media centers."
Nintendo is not worrying about all the bells and whistles, but is instead designing a gaming console to be used for gaming. By keeping your attention focused on that single task, you do not need to throw tons of processing power and ridiculous hardware into the machine so it can perform its specialized task.
It would be intersting if during this experience ATI managed to come up with a nice, more efficient graphics processing design that could still be powerful and useful in a PC computing environment. The power drains that some graphics cards seem to pull nowadays is getting crazy and it is always fun to laugh at the cards so big they take an extra slot just to cool them.
Deliver and provide are technically synonyms of produce and the usage isn't totally horrible. The problem is people get stuck on the idea of produce having a more stringent definition then it really does.
Technically that makes it a power supply. The word power supply actually encompasses a few things and is mostly meant to be used to avoid having to explain to those who are not tech literate was an inverter, converter, or a rectifier...well I think most EE's I know even call rectifiers (AC-DC conversion), AC to DC converters, but then again most of us hated power courses.
Yes, this device boils down to be nothing more then a DC-DC voltage converter, but it is a power supply since its job is to take the input voltage and properly convert it to supply the right voltage to the rights lines. Well that is enough talk about power for one day...
You can easily get a wall-plug AC-DC (12V) adapter. It will look no worse then some of the standard AC-DC wall-plugs you get and a good one should not obstruct any outlets. Surely, this is better then a mini-ITX with a huge PS or a brick sitting on the floor.
Both companies were at one time the main producer of Unix workstations (Sun during the 90s, Apple today)
Ok, truthfully these numbers are skewed, but Sun STILL is the main producer of Unix Workstations. Why is this number skewed? Because Apple does not produce Unix Workstations. OS X is a BSD variant, and we all know that is not Unix. Secondly, it is quite possible in the scheme of things Apple computers don't get classified as workstations, but as personal or desktop computers. They do seem to differentiate this in numbers. Don't forget there are HP and IBM workstations out there running Unix (HP-UX anyone?).
Their Unix based operating systems are open source.
Umm, I do not think that OS X is considered open source. If this were the case, don't you think someone would have dragged OS X to x86 before Apple did. As for Sun, they just recently opened Solaris and that was mostly a move to encourage OSS people to use more Sun items.
Both were founded in the context of Stanford university.
How you gather this one? Jobs is a dropout from Reeds College and Wozniak is a dropout of UC-Berkley. The closest I can figure is they attended a Homebrew Computer Club in Palo Alto. Not quite stanford but I can see your confusion.
Both are based in California.
You just joined a great many companies together with that one. California has a huge computer industry and several companies based in and around silicon valley. Hardly a connection.
Both are strong supporters of Java.
Again, so are a lot of people. Of course since Java is Sun's bread and butter, I would surely hope they are "strong supporters" of it. As for Apple, I do not know how strong their support of it is.
There are some connections between Apple and Sun, but I think most connections people are going to find are highly coincidental and not note-worthy.
I am reminded of a time when the Playstation 2 came out and the buzz around DVD players. I also recall my first two DVD players. The first was in a computer and was considerably cheaper then stand-alone players or the PS2. The one to follow was a Philips DVD player which cost around $100 and was also cheaper then the PS2. I already had a Dreamcast, so why did I need a PS2?
Let us speed forward to the present day. I have an HDTV, 7 DVD players (2 in desktops, 2 in laptops, 1 in a media player, 1 PS2, and my Philips) and a job that actually allows me to spend money on things (including my massive DVD collection). I have enjoyed the high quality images and sound of HDTV and enjoy the thought of a format capable of giving me movies that way, but something is wrong.
First, there is the format war. Some of us are two young to remember Betamax and VHS, but this battle took some time to resolve and in the end was settled by the porn industry (or so the legend goes). Here we are with another format war and suggestions that a victor could take 10 years to determine (of course history says choose against Sony). Do I want to invest money in a player that could be obsolete in a few years? Not really. I am not convinced quality of sound or image will be improved enough for me to warrant buying a player and re-building a movie collection.
You see, some people still record movies on regular old film. Some now use digital technology, but even then it is not always HD cameras doing the recording. The actual number of available items truly recorded in HD is so limited that the resolution bump will not help many movies, and might even hurt some. This is especially true for older movies, we all notice it; the grain you see on your TV and holes that appeared as the film aged. Sound is almost equally pointless for many of these same reasons; I actually have DVDs with nothing but Mono or Stereo tracks.
There are also the quality concerns and lack of features that are often inherent on first generation products. Don't we all remember those 1st generation DVD players and how wonderfully they have stood the test of time. So the PS3 might seem tempting at first, but in the end separate HD-DVD and Blu-Ray drives in your PC might (and most likely will) cost less. Now a real fascinating trick that would send my entire complaint down the tube (well the format war at least), is if someone could/would develop a player with a single drive capable of playing both formats. Oh how nice that dream would be.