I'd like to see Apple try to defend its "ownership" of the word "pad" against a company that thinks it's worth its while to wrest it from Apple's clutches.
Merely descriptive words are not supposed to be trademarks, and Microsoft almost lost theirs for the word "Windows" to Lindows/Linspire when Microsoft said that changing the name to Linspire wasn't good enough. Microsoft pushed too hard. Linspire said in court "hey, just one second here, can you really own a generic descriptive word?" Microsoft wound up paying Linspire to shut the hell up about it.
And then Linspire proceeded to squander the money, but hey, it was funny to watch Microsoft almost lose "Windows" entirely.
The download for the Linux Adobe Reader is 60 some-odd megabytes. The font package is another 40 some-odd.
It's only supposed to be a document display. I remember a full blown 32 bit operating system with a GUI (OS/2) that took up a stack of 16 (estimating) 3.5 inch floppies. Just what the fuck is Adobe doing?
The only thing I can think of is that the code base for Adobe Reader is spaghetti code and every time they update it, it adds more spaghetti. This probably explains the very long lag time when it comes to security updates.
is it not a requirement for those coming to this country, to attain citizenship to show on the exams, a proficiency in English??
Not really. The test doesn't measure any kind of real world proficiency, just a rudimentary working knowledge of English, at a basic level.
The test also only measures a very basic understanding of the political system here, but I have the feeling that many American citizens would fail it.
But let me ask you this, what are the requirements for voting as a naturally born citizen of the US? Age of majority and being on this side of the turf. We tried literacy tests, but we all know how that went.
China is in the midst of its industrial revolution.
You say that our own industrial revolution is irrelevant. I don't think so and obviously the Chinese don't think so either. What you or I say is irrelevant to them, and if the Chinese started dictating to the US what we should do, you'd be telling them to piss off too.
But to bitch about it without recognizing the historical precedent we set here in the US is being disingenuous. For a very long time we ignore European copyright (Dickens was angry about this) and the Industrial Revolution being kicked off in Pawtucket, Rhode Island by Mr. Slater was a feat of "intellectual property theft" and he was a hero for it.
I can get as mad as I want at China, but once I step back a second, I can understand the motivations.
The EU and the Brits figured this out long ago. The British data protection act is a model of privacy protection that we should have emulated. But that was in the day that the world wide wibbley web was still very immature and back when moneyed interests weren't as powerful. Now there's so much inertia for data mining the web that this will never see the light of day outside any Senate or House committee.
the eradication of all even potentially pathogenic bacteria living in the human host
You would die. You would completely keel over and be an ex-parrot.
You rely on bacteria just to get through the day, and *all* are potentially pathogenic. There is e. coli that lives in your gut happily digesting food and helping give you vitamin B, and then there is e. coli that can kill you dead via food poisoning. It only takes a few gene swaps to make one the other, and bacteria do this all the time on their own.
Does this mean that terrorists are such idiots that they give clues as to their plans in their status updates?
The prisons are not full of geniuses.
What is it about facebook that makes all people act stupid?
Half of everyone has an IQ lower than 100 (and half higher, by definition). It's not Facebook's fault.
TFA also mentions they monitor twitter?
Yeah, why the fuck not?
Yeah, that's surprising to me, since it implies at least a few criminals are so stupid, they tweet their crimes before they do them
This surprises you? What about the converse where people tell the whole fucking world on FB and Twatter that they are ON VACATION FOR A WEEK NOBODY IS HOME PLEASE ROB ME.
saying it's part of their job.
It is part of their job, just like a beat cop walking the sidewalk noticing the thug checking car door handles looking for an open car to break into.
If you're going to do your business in public, don't be surprised about all this. Come the fuck on, people, even an email is no better than a postcard (without encryption) and people like Bruce S. and Phil Z. have been screaming at you idiots for well over two decades about this.
I'm checking up on, er, colleagues to make sure they're not going to scoop us..."
If you're a reporter and you're NOT using FB, Twatter, and such, to look for leads on stories, you're behind the times and need to get with the program.
Yes, but *which* specific deployment of Siemens PLCs? Which company? Which government? Which military branch? Which *building*?
There's a whole bunch of speculation but no facts. Until someone can match up even the model numbers with what the software was targeting, there is no "there" there.
And with the way that Iran procures items for its government/military (through ghost companies run by the Revolutionary Guard (read up on this, it's fascinating)) it's highly unlikely that we could ever trace where Siemens PLCs went from Germany to wherever in Iran without actually walking up to the machine cabinets, opening them up, and writing down the serial and model numbers.
Siemens PLCs are everywhere. Same with GE and others. They run everything from nuke plants to little benchtop lathes and aerospace applications. How this person decided that it *had* to be the Iranian nuke plant baffles me.
How does he know that it wasn't targeted at various military targets? Iranian medium and short range missile installations also come to mind. Does he *have* the Siemens PLC configuration from the nuke plant in his hot little hands? Or does he even have the model numbers?
Reading TFA, no.
Peterson believes that Bushehr was possibly the target. "If I had to guess what it was, yes that's a logical target," he said. "But that's just speculation."
Well, there you go. Nothing to see here.
That's not to say that actual cyber-warfare is not happening, but to come out with wild-ass speculation and present it as newsworthy reminds me of Fox "News" and the rest of the Murdoch "empire."
It wasn't *just* about Christian denominations. He is the primary reason why we have religious liberty here in the US. There's a reason why one of RI's nicknames is Rogue's Island. We took all the Quakers, Jews, and really, everyone else who couldn't abide the theocracy in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Back when the so-called "righteous" were hanging Quakers, RI took them in.
And when the loons on the "right" start spouting off about "founding fathers" I have to laugh. You can't get much more "founding" than signing a treaty with the Narragansetts in 1636.
Roger Williams was quite a dynamic individual. The deeper you dig, the more you have to respect his reasoning and how far ahead of his time he was. It's a shame what's happening to my country.
Newt Gingrich has done nothing but pour gasoline and a lit match on the whole "Islam is invading our country!!" stupidity.
It's one thing for some douchebag TV "Personality" like Glenn Beck to produce verbal diarrhea, but when a supposedly rational (for loose definitions of such) people of power Godwin themselves on the Sunday morning political shows is entirely another.
People like him seriously frighten me.
I have wrapped coils of wire around the petrified spinning dust of Roger Williams and I plan to power the whole of North America just as soon as I get the contract signed with National Grid.
-- BMO - "When they come to ethnically cleanse me, will you speak out, will you defend me?" - PWEI
Instead of allowing them to constantly add new programs and new spending, how about electing some folks on the platform to reduce spending until you have a balanced budget
What, exactly, are you talking about? Is all your "news" from Glenn Beck?
The days of "Taxachusetts" are long gone. They've been gone for a couple of decades now. Indeed, the new Massachusetts budget is not only balanced but includes cuts in everything across the board.
What is the difference between mail/fax/phone order and purchases made through "teh intertubes"?
Mail order has never had to collect sales tax except for in-state customers. Why are web based businesses any different? Why were states not clamoring for sales tax collection in the heyday of mail order? Politicians act as if web based businesses are getting special treatment.
They aren't. They never did get special treatment.
So what's going to happen now? Internet sales are going to be taxed but mail order won't be? Because I certainly don't hear about mail order sales being slapped with a tax in any of these discussions. It's all about skimming off of internet sales.
Fine.
I'll just slap a stamp on it or fire up the fax machine and send orders that way, like I did 15 years ago.
Yeah, it could pass every test suite on the planet, but that doesn't mean they can't *add* their own little bit of kit to "extend" it in an incompatible or even *patented* way. Look at what they did with kerberos, or like, *any other standard* they've dealt with. To Microsoft, "standards are for chumps."
Saying "Microsoft is standards compliant THIS time" is just too much to swallow.
Go ahead, softies, mod this one down too. I have more karma than you.
And this time they would do it not by breaking standards,
You really believe this? Really? After Microsoft abandoning its *own* approved ISO standard for the busted ECMA document standard, the one that never passed ISO?
Slashdot Mirror
And you think that Apple's design and form factor of the iPad is somehow groundbreaking?
Go read the paper on the Dynabook concept from the 70s. Right down to the capacitive screen.
There is no intellectual property here. All the big thinking was done 40 years ago at PARC.
--
BMO
I'd like to see Apple try to defend its "ownership" of the word "pad" against a company that thinks it's worth its while to wrest it from Apple's clutches.
Merely descriptive words are not supposed to be trademarks, and Microsoft almost lost theirs for the word "Windows" to Lindows/Linspire when Microsoft said that changing the name to Linspire wasn't good enough. Microsoft pushed too hard. Linspire said in court "hey, just one second here, can you really own a generic descriptive word?" Microsoft wound up paying Linspire to shut the hell up about it.
And then Linspire proceeded to squander the money, but hey, it was funny to watch Microsoft almost lose "Windows" entirely.
--
BMO
No, a Newton not a weight, it is a cookie.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Fig_Newton
And too many Newtons leads to weight gain.
--
BMO
I have to say, I actually chuckled. +1 funny if I had mod points.
No, i don't care if it's redundant, because it's the first time I've seen this one, and considering the season, apropos.
--
BMO
The download for the Linux Adobe Reader is 60 some-odd megabytes. The font package is another 40 some-odd.
It's only supposed to be a document display. I remember a full blown 32 bit operating system with a GUI (OS/2) that took up a stack of 16 (estimating) 3.5 inch floppies. Just what the fuck is Adobe doing?
The only thing I can think of is that the code base for Adobe Reader is spaghetti code and every time they update it, it adds more spaghetti. This probably explains the very long lag time when it comes to security updates.
--
BMO
is it not a requirement for those coming to this country, to attain citizenship to show on the exams, a proficiency in English??
Not really. The test doesn't measure any kind of real world proficiency, just a rudimentary working knowledge of English, at a basic level.
The test also only measures a very basic understanding of the political system here, but I have the feeling that many American citizens would fail it.
But let me ask you this, what are the requirements for voting as a naturally born citizen of the US? Age of majority and being on this side of the turf. We tried literacy tests, but we all know how that went.
--
BMO
"A bucket of scrap a day keeps the overtime on its way"
--
BMO
"Some TV executives said they were worried their shows would be lost in the larger Internet."
As if the Internet is going to go away.
There's a turn of phrase my dad calls something like that.
"Shoveling shit against the tide"
--
BMO
China is in the midst of its industrial revolution.
You say that our own industrial revolution is irrelevant. I don't think so and obviously the Chinese don't think so either. What you or I say is irrelevant to them, and if the Chinese started dictating to the US what we should do, you'd be telling them to piss off too.
Shoe, meet other foot.
--
BMO
But to bitch about it without recognizing the historical precedent we set here in the US is being disingenuous. For a very long time we ignore European copyright (Dickens was angry about this) and the Industrial Revolution being kicked off in Pawtucket, Rhode Island by Mr. Slater was a feat of "intellectual property theft" and he was a hero for it.
I can get as mad as I want at China, but once I step back a second, I can understand the motivations.
We taught them well.
--
BMO
Footnotes:
Slater's Mill: http://www.slatermill.org/
Dickens and Copyright: http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/pva/pva75.html
The EU and the Brits figured this out long ago. The British data protection act is a model of privacy protection that we should have emulated. But that was in the day that the world wide wibbley web was still very immature and back when moneyed interests weren't as powerful. Now there's so much inertia for data mining the web that this will never see the light of day outside any Senate or House committee.
--
BMO
Ask myself? I did. I answered "he's a nut."
Either that or IHBT.
--
BMO
the eradication of all even potentially pathogenic bacteria living in the human host
You would die. You would completely keel over and be an ex-parrot.
You rely on bacteria just to get through the day, and *all* are potentially pathogenic. There is e. coli that lives in your gut happily digesting food and helping give you vitamin B, and then there is e. coli that can kill you dead via food poisoning. It only takes a few gene swaps to make one the other, and bacteria do this all the time on their own.
Ask myself? I did. I answered "he's a nut."
--
BMO
Does this mean that terrorists are such idiots that they give clues as to their plans in their status updates?
The prisons are not full of geniuses.
What is it about facebook that makes all people act stupid?
Half of everyone has an IQ lower than 100 (and half higher, by definition). It's not Facebook's fault.
TFA also mentions they monitor twitter?
Yeah, why the fuck not?
Yeah, that's surprising to me, since it implies at least a few criminals are so stupid, they tweet their crimes before they do them
This surprises you? What about the converse where people tell the whole fucking world on FB and Twatter that they are ON VACATION FOR A WEEK NOBODY IS HOME PLEASE ROB ME.
saying it's part of their job.
It is part of their job, just like a beat cop walking the sidewalk noticing the thug checking car door handles looking for an open car to break into.
If you're going to do your business in public, don't be surprised about all this. Come the fuck on, people, even an email is no better than a postcard (without encryption) and people like Bruce S. and Phil Z. have been screaming at you idiots for well over two decades about this.
I'm checking up on, er, colleagues to make sure they're not going to scoop us..."
If you're a reporter and you're NOT using FB, Twatter, and such, to look for leads on stories, you're behind the times and need to get with the program.
Politicians can be just as stupid.
--
BMO
Well, *that's* the last time I click on a NetworkWorld link.
DIAF, NetworkWorld.
--
BMO
Intolerance isn't exactly limited to borders drawn on a map..
No kidding. Intolerance happens to go on the Sunday Morning political shows and compare muslims with Nazis.
--
BMO
Yes, but *which* specific deployment of Siemens PLCs? Which company? Which government? Which military branch? Which *building*?
There's a whole bunch of speculation but no facts. Until someone can match up even the model numbers with what the software was targeting, there is no "there" there.
And with the way that Iran procures items for its government/military (through ghost companies run by the Revolutionary Guard (read up on this, it's fascinating)) it's highly unlikely that we could ever trace where Siemens PLCs went from Germany to wherever in Iran without actually walking up to the machine cabinets, opening them up, and writing down the serial and model numbers.
Sorry, AC. Read TFA closer.
--
BMO
Siemens PLCs are everywhere. Same with GE and others. They run everything from nuke plants to little benchtop lathes and aerospace applications. How this person decided that it *had* to be the Iranian nuke plant baffles me.
How does he know that it wasn't targeted at various military targets? Iranian medium and short range missile installations also come to mind. Does he *have* the Siemens PLC configuration from the nuke plant in his hot little hands? Or does he even have the model numbers?
Reading TFA, no.
Peterson believes that Bushehr was possibly the target. "If I had to guess what it was, yes that's a logical target," he said. "But that's just speculation."
Well, there you go. Nothing to see here.
That's not to say that actual cyber-warfare is not happening, but to come out with wild-ass speculation and present it as newsworthy reminds me of Fox "News" and the rest of the Murdoch "empire."
--
BMO
Firesign Theatre:
"Domini, Domini, Domini. You are all Catholics now"
--
BMO
This is late, but...
Yes, that guy.
See, I live in Rhode Island itself.
It wasn't *just* about Christian denominations. He is the primary reason why we have religious liberty here in the US. There's a reason why one of RI's nicknames is Rogue's Island. We took all the Quakers, Jews, and really, everyone else who couldn't abide the theocracy in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Back when the so-called "righteous" were hanging Quakers, RI took them in.
And when the loons on the "right" start spouting off about "founding fathers" I have to laugh. You can't get much more "founding" than signing a treaty with the Narragansetts in 1636.
Roger Williams was quite a dynamic individual. The deeper you dig, the more you have to respect his reasoning and how far ahead of his time he was. It's a shame what's happening to my country.
--
BMO
This comment is write only, but I need to vent.
Newt Gingrich has done nothing but pour gasoline and a lit match on the whole "Islam is invading our country!!" stupidity.
It's one thing for some douchebag TV "Personality" like Glenn Beck to produce verbal diarrhea, but when a supposedly rational (for loose definitions of such) people of power Godwin themselves on the Sunday morning political shows is entirely another.
People like him seriously frighten me.
I have wrapped coils of wire around the petrified spinning dust of Roger Williams and I plan to power the whole of North America just as soon as I get the contract signed with National Grid.
--
BMO - "When they come to ethnically cleanse me, will you speak out, will you defend me?" - PWEI
Instead of allowing them to constantly add new programs and new spending, how about electing some folks on the platform to reduce spending until you have a balanced budget
What, exactly, are you talking about? Is all your "news" from Glenn Beck?
The days of "Taxachusetts" are long gone. They've been gone for a couple of decades now. Indeed, the new Massachusetts budget is not only balanced but includes cuts in everything across the board.
http://www.masslive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/07/editorial_massachusetts_budget.html
I have a problem with taxing online purchases, but deficit spending is not one of them.
--
BMO
What is the difference between mail/fax/phone order and purchases made through "teh intertubes"?
Mail order has never had to collect sales tax except for in-state customers. Why are web based businesses any different? Why were states not clamoring for sales tax collection in the heyday of mail order? Politicians act as if web based businesses are getting special treatment.
They aren't. They never did get special treatment.
So what's going to happen now? Internet sales are going to be taxed but mail order won't be? Because I certainly don't hear about mail order sales being slapped with a tax in any of these discussions. It's all about skimming off of internet sales.
Fine.
I'll just slap a stamp on it or fire up the fax machine and send orders that way, like I did 15 years ago.
It was nice knowin' ya, Internet commerce.
--
BMO
Yeah, it could pass every test suite on the planet, but that doesn't mean they can't *add* their own little bit of kit to "extend" it in an incompatible or even *patented* way. Look at what they did with kerberos, or like, *any other standard* they've dealt with. To Microsoft, "standards are for chumps."
Saying "Microsoft is standards compliant THIS time" is just too much to swallow.
Go ahead, softies, mod this one down too. I have more karma than you.
--
BMO
And this time they would do it not by breaking standards,
You really believe this? Really? After Microsoft abandoning its *own* approved ISO standard for the busted ECMA document standard, the one that never passed ISO?
Shill or gullible. You pick.
--
BMO