Too bad the USPTO doesn't require a working prototype.
No, no, no.
For high tech inventions, individual inventors often must be awarded a patent in order to drum up enough funding to build a prototype. Imagine having a great idea for a new type of airplane. You'd be up a creek when the USPTO asked for a "working prototype."
Nice start, clearly styled after Microsoft's Office demos. However, these OpenOffice videos seem slightly unprofessional and cover the sort of topics that most users don't need help with. Clearly, for initiatives like the one in Massachusetts, a repository of advanced videos should be made available (see the variety and, more importantly, the relevance of the demos at the above link).
A few basic videos won't sway anyone.
But hey, maybe the whole state of Massachusetts will buy your book, right Roblimo?
I'm sure there's a lot of exaggeration going on there, but I've seen serious research indicating that flossing does help prevent heart disease.
In searching for such articles, I found a bunch of "Real Age" web sites with lists of lifestyle changes intended to "add years to your life." This one takes the cake. Apparently getting a dog, having sex, not smoking, flossing, and going to bed early will double your life span. By this metric, Hugh Hefner will live forever (assuming he flosses).
I've been told a few times that if you don't floss you might as well not even brush. I don't see how any gum could possibly be effective in the same way as flossing.
However, I'm impressed that the Army has finally found something of use for both soldiers and really lazy people.
yeah, i'll probably be mod'd troll or whatever, but why is google doing this? (what are their secret motives?)
I doubt they have any "sinister" intentions. Giving free WiFi to an entire city is good marketing. Hell, it's amazing marketing. Google is continuing to position itself as the knight in shining armor in anticipation of competition with Microsoft.
Who would you rather do business with? On one hand, you have the company that brought free internet to the huddled masses. On the other, the big evil company that not only caused your Grandma's credit card number to get stolen, but also happens to be the Devil's liaison on Earth.
Remember: do no evil.
Not that either company is all bad or all good. Furthermore, the bigger Google gets, the more they'll begin resembling Microsoft. As Google becomes more and more information thirsty, I can't wait to see the information-wants-to-be-free-but-privacy-is-a-god- given-right heads explode.
The kernel development team recently set a policy that new features must be added to the next version of the kernel during the two weeks after the release of the previous version.
I admittedly know nothing about the kernel development process, but two weeks sounds like too little time. Won't this stifle new features and improvements?
It'll be interesting to see if the game play will be undesirably impacted due to decisions about how to accomodate the development for both PC and console, similarly to how Deus Ex: Invisible War was impacted.
Morrowind (the previous game in the series) was developed simultaneously for PC and XBox and didn't seem to suffer at all for it.
Your "most significant" argument is that patents on recipes do not serve a societal purpose? Then I ask you this:
What exactly is a recipe? Is it a list of ingredients and instructions on how to combine them? Everything from Big Macs, to Coke, to just about every industrial product is made by following some set of instructions. Heat that; pour that into this, mix some of the other thing in.
Do recipes consist only of instructions for the production of edible goods? Are pharmaceuticals edibles? Would you prefer that drug companies not be able to patent their products? We pay high prices for pharmaceuticals in America, but the research performed by our corporations aids people all over the world in the form of international generics and imitations. Would you prefer that this cease? I'm assuming you're a hippie and the answer is no.
Furthermore, isn't code a sort of recipe, just another set of instructions? Stupid question, I know, because you're probably also against software patents.
Point is: blind aversion to all things "not free" is idiotic. A brief survey of the beloved open source industry will prove how important patents are. The vast majority of open source businesses (with the exception of the "we love open source, now buy our products" companies who maintain a slew of closed products and patents) do not do well. This is because they have no method of protecting their innovations. They are service companies, the custodial workers of information technology.
Removing society's mechanism for the protection of innovation and invention would stifle individual inventors and reduce corporate research spending. The software business would be reduced to a mean service industry. American research and industry has managed to drive a successful economy and create numerous world-changing technologies, thanks in part to our patent structure. The system sure ain't broke, and nobody wants you to fix it.
Looks like I got a bit ahead of myself. You haven't even defined recipe...
First of all the article states that they measured a current of 40,000 volts. . . Second 40,000 volts isn't unreasonable, its current that kills. Lightning has a voltage 1-2 orders of magnitude higher, and people frequently survive lightning strikes. 3rd Ever done a demo with a Van de Graaf generator??? ~100,000 Volts. Watch out, hundreds of school children are in danger of spontaneously combusting!
You head up around the coast, travel through some exotic locations, kill the Combine then come back down again. All in all, you're looking at about a 15-minute experience.
From all the press about Lost Coast, I assumed it was a mission pack / sequel.
Talk about 15 minutes of fame.
I guess I'm the only one here who agreed with most of this article? Games may be blowing up right now, but they're about to go completely stale if current trends continue.
No offense, but your dislike of women in skimpy outfits does not portend doom for the game industry.
Part of it is probably reminiscing, but mostly I think older games couldn't rely on great graphics, so they had to make up for it in other areas.
A lot of older games did rely on great graphics, only great graphics relative to their competitors. The great graphics of today's flashy games are tomorrow's simple graphics.
A lot of arguments against the ability to change the past bring up the fact that people don't simply vanish. However, there are thousands of missing persons in the U.S. alone. We attribute these cases to crime or insanity, but what if...
Isn't a bazaar always a mess? Lots of different people selling lots of different stuff, some things are junk, some are treasures. (of course, you cannot buy anything at the open source bazaar, only copy/modify it - in other words, create more mess).
So he has no clue what he's talking about, but you completely agree with him?
"The problem is getting away with it - you've got to send the money somewhere," Stewart said. "If it involves some sort of monetary transaction, it's far easier to trace than an email account."
These guys won't get caught as long as they operate internationally and keep their ransom demands relatively low. As we've seen with the Nigerian Scam, there will be little impetus to apprehend these worthless criminals.
Why don't you just give up? The whole world is waiting for you to come up with an idea *on your own* AND *implement it yourselves*.
Come on. MSN users care about easy access to the information they want. Microsoft is (and should be) focusing on presentation, not innovation.
None of this "i can do that, too" stuff. None of this "I see a company that already does what I want, lets buy them." Come up with an idea on your own and implement it yourselves.
Name a big company that this does not apply to. And please don't say Google: they acquired a blogging company, and the good lord knows they didn't come up with searching the internet. Maybe specific implementation and presentation are more important than innovation?
Oh, and look up the definition for "virtual". You keep using that word, but I do not think it means what you think it means. You're not, for all intents and purposes, providing the Earth.
From the American Heritage Dictionary (accessed at Bartleby.com):
virtual:... 3. Computer Science: Created, simulated, or carried on by means of a computer or computer network: virtual conversations in a chatroom.
Unfortunately, he did sneak it past you.
Jay: Oh, Hi, I'm Jay and this is my hetero-life-mate, Silent Bob.
Crappy movie, but Jay and Silent Bob will always be amusing =/.
Microsoft, they are a computer company, aren't they? They had that weird software for those big clunky old desktop machines...Nothing like the Google OS running on my digital phone/mp6 player/dvd/game machine/tablet PC.
Of course! Because, you know, Microsoft doesn't make an OS for phones and tablet PCs. And they certainly do not have a game machine.
And Google does! Good call.
Slashdot Mirror
You are, I assume, referring to the same "Japanese" electronics arm that is behind Blu-ray DRM?
Judging by the tricks Sony is developing for consumer electronics, I'd assume their "engineering-led" arm is saying "Hell yeah, BMG, lead the way!"
For high tech inventions, individual inventors often must be awarded a patent in order to drum up enough funding to build a prototype. Imagine having a great idea for a new type of airplane. You'd be up a creek when the USPTO asked for a "working prototype."
Nice start, clearly styled after Microsoft's Office demos. However, these OpenOffice videos seem slightly unprofessional and cover the sort of topics that most users don't need help with. Clearly, for initiatives like the one in Massachusetts, a repository of advanced videos should be made available (see the variety and, more importantly, the relevance of the demos at the above link).
A few basic videos won't sway anyone.
But hey, maybe the whole state of Massachusetts will buy your book, right Roblimo?
Well, if you think Slashdot has great advice, then wait until you check out 21stcenturydental.com =/.
Daily Flossing Can Add 6.4 Years To Your Life.
I'm sure there's a lot of exaggeration going on there, but I've seen serious research indicating that flossing does help prevent heart disease.
In searching for such articles, I found a bunch of "Real Age" web sites with lists of lifestyle changes intended to "add years to your life." This one takes the cake. Apparently getting a dog, having sex, not smoking, flossing, and going to bed early will double your life span. By this metric, Hugh Hefner will live forever (assuming he flosses).
I've been told a few times that if you don't floss you might as well not even brush. I don't see how any gum could possibly be effective in the same way as flossing.
However, I'm impressed that the Army has finally found something of use for both soldiers and really lazy people.
Who would you rather do business with? On one hand, you have the company that brought free internet to the huddled masses. On the other, the big evil company that not only caused your Grandma's credit card number to get stolen, but also happens to be the Devil's liaison on Earth.
Remember: do no evil.
Not that either company is all bad or all good. Furthermore, the bigger Google gets, the more they'll begin resembling Microsoft. As Google becomes more and more information thirsty, I can't wait to see the information-wants-to-be-free-but-privacy-is-a-god
It'd be nice to live in Mountain View, though.
Not according to these.
But hey, pulling things out of your ass is good fun, right?
Your "most significant" argument is that patents on recipes do not serve a societal purpose? Then I ask you this:
What exactly is a recipe? Is it a list of ingredients and instructions on how to combine them? Everything from Big Macs, to Coke, to just about every industrial product is made by following some set of instructions. Heat that; pour that into this, mix some of the other thing in.
Do recipes consist only of instructions for the production of edible goods? Are pharmaceuticals edibles? Would you prefer that drug companies not be able to patent their products? We pay high prices for pharmaceuticals in America, but the research performed by our corporations aids people all over the world in the form of international generics and imitations. Would you prefer that this cease? I'm assuming you're a hippie and the answer is no.
Furthermore, isn't code a sort of recipe, just another set of instructions? Stupid question, I know, because you're probably also against software patents.
Point is: blind aversion to all things "not free" is idiotic. A brief survey of the beloved open source industry will prove how important patents are. The vast majority of open source businesses (with the exception of the "we love open source, now buy our products" companies who maintain a slew of closed products and patents) do not do well. This is because they have no method of protecting their innovations. They are service companies, the custodial workers of information technology.
Removing society's mechanism for the protection of innovation and invention would stifle individual inventors and reduce corporate research spending. The software business would be reduced to a mean service industry. American research and industry has managed to drive a successful economy and create numerous world-changing technologies, thanks in part to our patent structure. The system sure ain't broke, and nobody wants you to fix it.
Looks like I got a bit ahead of myself. You haven't even defined recipe...
Fourth, volts aren't a measure of current =/.
No, but I do wish I could moderate your post (Score:420, High As A F*cking Kite).
I'm sure they can think of 26 billion reasons...
I don't actually believe this, but:
A lot of arguments against the ability to change the past bring up the fact that people don't simply vanish. However, there are thousands of missing persons in the U.S. alone. We attribute these cases to crime or insanity, but what if...
I could use a good episode of Unsolved Mysteries.
Congratulations on creating the ultimate Slashdot Moderator's Dilemma. Your deft combination of hippy manifestos and racism is guaranteed to confuse!
Informative?
=/
Unfortunately, he did sneak it past you. Jay: Oh, Hi, I'm Jay and this is my hetero-life-mate, Silent Bob. Crappy movie, but Jay and Silent Bob will always be amusing =/.
Ahh, the future: war, pestilence, and incredibly ugly furniture.