although the bouncing thing was extremely neat, it wasn't exactly original. in fact, the soviets used it quite a lot -- they just never got anything to work afterwards! (which I suppose means that the NASA version must have been different, at least. cooperation yields many dubious benefits)
you should see some of the mars rovers they've got now -- very sweet, innovative hardware (the one I worked on was actually bought from russia) and software that will make them able to do actual WORK once we send em there.
except that you can't get there from here -- it's blocked if you come from/., or several other sites that JP doesn't like.
Lea
Re:This is why there are moderated groups
on
Usenet Gag Order
·
· Score: 2
there have been multiple cases of localities denying them a permit to march in certain areas. it depends on where you are, I suppose. most of the places that they have been barred from I believe are residential neighborhoods -- not really a place for a parade of any kind.
there was one of those before there was an iMac for the Palm III. sweet looking things too.
Lea
Re:This is why there are moderated groups
on
Usenet Gag Order
·
· Score: 1
they don't lose the right to express their opinions, but they do that right curtailed. for example, they have repeatedly been blocked from marching through "black" or "Catholic" neighborhoods. they have the right to express themselves -- but not to harass others. it's a delicate balance of "your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins"
I have a pretty good idea it wouldn't be highly complimentary to the original poster... all I am really going to say is that I agree with Buaku for more. something that makes you good only by bringing yourself to the lowest common denominator is not likely to help, in the long run. there are things one has to do for oneself, as well as others. right now, I'm working on my project for a compilers class, instead of working at McDonald's and sending the $$ off somewhere. your "virtue" does not seem to come from the act of giving, but from the act of not taking. those are sometimes compatable, but not often. becasue I will make more money, I consume more (I pay tuition, I pay for internet access, and a computer, not to mention those expensive books). later, I will give more away than Joe at MickeyD's, but I consume more, making me more evil.
with no choices, I'd be afraid that my ISP would go Australian on me and start blocking ports, or forcing me through their proxy. afaik, there is nothing to prevent them from doing this -- it's kinda like AOL trying to block websites from kids since they're "pornographic" or "innapropriate" (even though I was set to recieve unfiltered internet, they blocked me from Microsoft, becasue it was "obscene".:))
just a thought -- I don't think they're going to try to do it (they'd be morons to jepordize their common carrier status) but we've seen other moves like this before...
RIAA did not make them aware of anything, according to the article. they asked the university to check and see if there was anything that they (the RIAA) would object to.
they were also not publically available to anyone BUT the university system. RIAA could not have known anything. they were just sending out scare letters, and CMU responded.
RIAA just asked them to check their students files to see if there WERE mp3's. they couldn't have known, since these files were only accessable inside the university (according to the article). no one was "made aware" of anything. they were instead asked to inspect, for themselves, the entire campus' files for copyright violations.
I think they made a pretty bad move. now they're setting themselves up to be liable for whatever is left behind that could possibly be illegal: mp3's, comments about a professor/Bill Gates/Bill Clinton/Bill Buddy Bob, anything...
IMHO, a presigned contract would be something like Microsoft's EULA. you never actually sign the blasted thing... the only choice you have is to tear it up
I got one of those Creative TNT boards as well. in fact, I went out and bought it SPECIFICALLY because it works well under Linux. (my old card, with an i760 chipset, did NOT until 3.3.1, if I remember correctly) cheers to creative for figuring out that this is a Good Thing, and we're likely to buy a lot more hardware now.
has anyone else been emailing them and bugging them like I have? every single time I have a problem with Creative's hardware (which, given the DxR2, is a lot) I stick in a "oh yeah, and WHEN will this work with linux?"...
now I'm waiting for them DVD drivers. even closed source. software decoding is fine too. just let me watch the movies!!!
objectivity is still, to a large degree, dependent on the school administrators who fill out the forms for this:
rank gabe the geek 1-5: sociability introverted ...
the point being that the administrator is going to be biased -- and so there is virtually no way to make the program apply equally: they are likely to overlook things that people they see as "normal" did, while the "weird ones" are likely to get slammed.
so, basically, how the program works and what it does to a school is dependent on the school administrators/teachers/counselors -- the same people as before. if this helps alleviate their fears, then perhaps things will change for the better in those schools still dominated by fear.
> I'd rather have a computer doing the initial > finger pointing. A machine doesn't discriminate > on anything other than what it 'sees.' People > are far less objective.
if it really worked like that, I'd be absolutely/floored/. reason: it doesn't see anything. the people who see things are the school administrators, who may or may not have biases against particular students. you think they won't know or won't figure out fairly quickly what makes a child "disturbed" to the program? and, as impartial as they will try to be, it's not hard to be swayed when you already think someone is disturbed, to push them a bit over the edge in the ratings, purposefully or no.
I'm not quite sure about the program. It looks exactly like an old DOS program that I had where you ranked people 1-5 on things like intellegence, introvertedness, etc, and it came up with a profile. the technology in itself isn't bad -- and these people sound like they know what they're doing. however (and you knew that had to come in somewhere), it sounds like a pathetic substitute and surrogate for teachers, counselors, and administrators... and what this program does to a school is ultimately determined by them.
1. make many modules for a modular reconfigurable robot 2. form them into a snake becasue the power supply takes both arms to carry and needs to be plugged into a wall 3. use robot as pet snake (worn around shoulders/neck for transport)
sure, I got some odd looks, but this was PARC -- people just wanted to play with it:)
I've had the same problem. ordinarily, it's not a problem at all, but when the guy you're semi-dating says "I think of you as a guy" you've really got to wonder if you need to start wearing tighter shirts or something.
actually, most guys I know now seem to realize instantly that I'm female and STILL be able to hold an intellegent conversation with me without drooling! that's the happy medium I've been going for:) (especially since I've got my own geekguy -- and I only need one, thank you very much)
on a side note, a lot of guyfriends pointed out this article and made offended noises to me. so it's not just dem women who are getting mad...
very nice. I posted a top 10 list of dangerous ideas (it's in response to Roblimo's message, which has been conveniently been moderated up, so it should be easy to find) which is something like this (although a lot longer)
also, thank you for using the "correct" (read: non-offensive) definition of the word "feminist". it's amazing how many people misinterpret it, including my sister. "I don't hate men, so I'm not a feminist". social progress in action!
while I believe you meant it lightly, I'll join the crowd of people who are calling it dangerous. while you are older than many of us who are making our way out into higher education/the workplace, I don't think this excuses your frankly outdated views. yes, it's nice to be taken care of, and to take care of someone in return. however, your lighthearted advice doesn't quite conceal a few (probably subliminal) biases in your mind. I'm not trying to flame you, but in the interests of the women out there, you might want to take a look at what I have to say. I'm very interested in your response, so please email or post back.
1. "don't waste your time on geek girls"
this holds two rather interesting assumptions - a) everyone who's reading this is either a) a heterosexual male or b) a homosexual female. as neither, I found the title quite striking. am I really a waste of time? my s.o. doesn't seem to think so, oddly enough.
2. "wouldn't it be nice if you found a woman who shares your interests? NO."
well, as you said in the post I'm responding to, you say your wife is a "talented artist and an adept computer user". apparenly she at least understands what you do, assuming that that's computers. one could also suppose that, forming a balanced, healthy relationship, you also share some interests of hers, perhaps in guns or art. while doing things outside of your normal sphere is healthy and interesting, see how long you can spend with a person who shares no interests with you. at least for me, that's not very long.
3. "She'd be obsessively coding or posting on Slashdot herself, and would brush you off when you needed her. What you really want is a woman who will be there for you when you get tired of staring at your monitor and need some loving, but will leave you alone and not demand your attention when you're busy."
rather one-sided, is it not? you reserve the right to interrupt her at any time, but you don't want her to do the same in return? I admit that this can be a problem in a geek-geek relationship, but I've seen it be even more of a problem in a geek-nongeek relationship. at least a geek understands when you're REALLY busy, and will keep you from working ALL the time, but allow you to get what is truly important done. it simply requires understanding.
4. "Men involved in activities that demand long periods of intense concentration (programmers, artists, writers, musicians, etc.) need women who will respect what they do and help them do it well, not women who compete with them."
so I am competition? for what? perhaps if a person is obsessed with being THE best at whatever she/he does, they would have a problem having a relationship with someone who also shared those interests. perhaps it is that person who has a problem, and not the geek commmunity at large. this is not a view I would expect in the nineties, but rather in the fifties. it harks back to the fear that boys have of meeting a girl who is better/smarter/tougher than they are, because they expect to be better/smarter/tougher by virtue of their sex. I, at least, look for a mate I respect highly, and if their proficiency is in my field, that is not a detractor.
5. "There are plenty of these women out there. They're as eager to find you as you are to find them."
the WWN would suggest otherwise:)
6. "instead of wasting your time on women with whom you cannot possibly build a long-term, mutually beneficial relationship"
who do you mean? the geek girls? I'd hope we are not to be dismissed from consideration so lightly.
7. "If I want to discuss PC hardware I do it with male friends, not with my wife."
I'd hate to assUme, but perhaps you have not had any sort of a relationship with a geek girl, including any sort of friendship. we may be "one of the guys" in some ways, but since we are certainly not male, I assume you're not referring to one of us. perhaps you will someday. we're not all bad.:)
8. "she'll let you know that, too (so you can dump her before you get too serious)"
if she finds you unattractive, she'll dump you, generally. no need for Macho Man to do it for her, so I would avoid jumping to conclusions.
9. "She took longer than most to develop in the chest department, but the results were worth waiting for."
as much as guys seem to be obsessed by breasts, I can't bring myself to believe you meant this as you phrased it. I don't agree with the general sentiment either, but you have a right to your opinion.
10. "Understanding women is harder than figuring out the hardest computer game, harder even than setting up a secure 200-client network running *BSD"
same goes for guys, you know.
now, many of your "life/relationship wisdom" nuggets are good ones, but quite a bit of the overtone is outdated and frankly a bit sexist. I'm not trying to insult you, that's just the way it looks to me, a geek girl of a younger generation. perhaps I've misinterpreted you, but that's neither here nor there.
I really do hope someone writes that woman piece, or even a balancing male piece, since many guys I know don't share many of your views (and brought this article to my attention becasue they were quite PO'd on my behalf).
actually, your age was true a while ago, but it's WAY WAY WAY too high now. Now 40% of girls have had sex by the time they're 14 (according to one study). keeps getting lower all the time.
maybe becasue it's the only thing that's legal -- though I doubt that. Lea
offtopic part: I think everyone agrees abortion is bad. however, it is sometimes the best alternative. if everyone were as rational as you are, we wouldn't have all this trouble.
hmm. I think I'll have an abortion today. sounds fun.
yes, I'm pro-choice. I still think abortions are not a good thing, but I don't believe in dictating morality to people.
ontopic part: well, if we go by the people who go around and shoot doctors, abortion is an unstablizing influence on certain sectors of society. is it illegal? NO.
we allow heated debates and the chance that people will get a little too dramatic (fight murder with murder!) and break laws they advocate in a stronger form because stabalization of society is not the end-all and be-all of our country.
after all, no one is really "pro-abortion". they're pro-choice. they are not likely to go shoot people becasue of it. of course, I would not have believed that people who believe abortion is murder would go and commit murder in a stronger form themselves, and be PROUD of it.
there are also a whole lot of other bad things that caffine does to you -- just check any Bio 1A text or AP Bio text. it's listed in there, along with the chart describing methods of birth control, including "withdrawal"*
the theory behind what you're describing is this (as well as I can understand/reproduce it):
ADD/ADHD people are already hyper/overstimulated. so, when you stimulate them some more, it's kinda like an overload, and the net effect is that you wrap around to the other end of the scale, i.e. calm.
xerox lost trademark status... whoever handles these things decided it was a common word, and so you can "xerox" a piece of paper with a xerox machine not made by Xerox, the company.
Targeting advertising in a home retail banking delivery service
A practical system and method for the remote distribution of financial services (e.g., home banking and bill-paying) involves distributing portable terminals to a user base. The terminals include a multi-line display, keys "pointing to" lines on the display, and additional keys. Contact is established between the terminals and a central computer operated by a service provider, preferably over a dial-up telephone line and a packet data network. Information exchange between the central computer and the terminal solicits information from the terminal user related to requested financial services (e.g., for billpaying, the user provides payee selection and amount and his bank account PIN number). The central computer then transmits a message over a conventional ATM network debiting the user's bank account in real time, and may pay the specified payees the specified amount electronically or in other ways as appropriate. Payments and transfers may be scheduled in advance or on a periodic basis. Because the central computer interacts with the user's bank as a standard POS or ATM network node, no significant software changes are required at the banks' computers. The terminal interface is extremely user-friendly and incorporates some features of standard ATM user interfaces so as to reduce new user anxiety.
sneaky! if this is what they're claiming, probably some bank set up their online banking to look like an ATM. and "We recommend Netscape 4.0 or better" is on the page. Ha! Netscape would be "violating" the transport/rendering thing.
these patents sure are smoking crack. I wish there was some way to invalidate the invalid ones that didn't take a massive amount of money and time for the organiztion erroneously sued...
despite the recent (somewhat) sucess of companies going after Microsoft in the legal arena, going after Microsoft for something as specious as this sounds (so far) is just asking them to jump on you. And while they have their own branded unix, how much do you want to bet that they have some MS Office around in there... to me, anyways, Netscape looks like a better initial target, if it's about browser technology.
I didn't see anything offhand in that article you reference that might explain patent infringement. the only thing that it looks like NCR brought to the table was another brand of unix to port the browser to, and an agreement so that Netscape would port the SuiteSpot server. looks like they paid Netscape so that they'd have an application on their OS. I'm sure no one/else/ has done that!:)
so far, anyways, I haven't seen anything resembling a valid patent that NCR held that Netscape violated. bring on the lawyers!
Slashdot Mirror
although the bouncing thing was extremely neat, it wasn't exactly original. in fact, the soviets used it quite a lot -- they just never got anything to work afterwards! (which I suppose means that the NASA version must have been different, at least. cooperation yields many dubious benefits)
you should see some of the mars rovers they've got now -- very sweet, innovative hardware (the one I worked on was actually bought from russia) and software that will make them able to do actual WORK once we send em there.
Lea
except that you can't get there from here -- it's blocked if you come from /., or several other sites that JP doesn't like.
Lea
there have been multiple cases of localities denying them a permit to march in certain areas. it depends on where you are, I suppose. most of the places that they have been barred from I believe are residential neighborhoods -- not really a place for a parade of any kind.
Lea
there was one of those before there was an iMac for the Palm III. sweet looking things too.
Lea
they don't lose the right to express their opinions, but they do that right curtailed. for example, they have repeatedly been blocked from marching through "black" or "Catholic" neighborhoods. they have the right to express themselves -- but not to harass others. it's a delicate balance of "your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins"
Lea
I have a pretty good idea it wouldn't be highly complimentary to the original poster... all I am really going to say is that I agree with Buaku for more. something that makes you good only by bringing yourself to the lowest common denominator is not likely to help, in the long run. there are things one has to do for oneself, as well as others. right now, I'm working on my project for a compilers class, instead of working at McDonald's and sending the $$ off somewhere. your "virtue" does not seem to come from the act of giving, but from the act of not taking. those are sometimes compatable, but not often. becasue I will make more money, I consume more (I pay tuition, I pay for internet access, and a computer, not to mention those expensive books). later, I will give more away than Joe at MickeyD's, but I consume more, making me more evil.
so which is king, eh? comsuption or donation?
Lea
with no choices, I'd be afraid that my ISP would go Australian on me and start blocking ports, or forcing me through their proxy. afaik, there is nothing to prevent them from doing this -- it's kinda like AOL trying to block websites from kids since they're "pornographic" or "innapropriate" (even though I was set to recieve unfiltered internet, they blocked me from Microsoft, becasue it was "obscene". :))
just a thought -- I don't think they're going to try to do it (they'd be morons to jepordize their common carrier status) but we've seen other moves like this before...
Lea
RIAA did not make them aware of anything, according to the article. they asked the university to check and see if there was anything that they (the RIAA) would object to.
they were also not publically available to anyone BUT the university system. RIAA could not have known anything. they were just sending out scare letters, and CMU responded.
Lea
RIAA just asked them to check their students files to see if there WERE mp3's. they couldn't have known, since these files were only accessable inside the university (according to the article). no one was "made aware" of anything. they were instead asked to inspect, for themselves, the entire campus' files for copyright violations.
I think they made a pretty bad move. now they're setting themselves up to be liable for whatever is left behind that could possibly be illegal: mp3's, comments about a professor/Bill Gates/Bill Clinton/Bill Buddy Bob, anything...
Lea
IMHO, a presigned contract would be something like Microsoft's EULA. you never actually sign the blasted thing... the only choice you have is to tear it up
Lea
I got one of those Creative TNT boards as well. in fact, I went out and bought it SPECIFICALLY because it works well under Linux. (my old card, with an i760 chipset, did NOT until 3.3.1, if I remember correctly) cheers to creative for figuring out that this is a Good Thing, and we're likely to buy a lot more hardware now.
has anyone else been emailing them and bugging them like I have? every single time I have a problem with Creative's hardware (which, given the DxR2, is a lot) I stick in a "oh yeah, and WHEN will this work with linux?"...
now I'm waiting for them DVD drivers. even closed source. software decoding is fine too. just let me watch the movies!!!
Lea
(see full version in reply to something else)
objectivity is still, to a large degree, dependent on the school administrators who fill out the forms for this:
rank gabe the geek 1-5:
sociability
introverted
...
the point being that the administrator is going to be biased -- and so there is virtually no way to make the program apply equally: they are likely to overlook things that people they see as "normal" did, while the "weird ones" are likely to get slammed.
so, basically, how the program works and what it does to a school is dependent on the school administrators/teachers/counselors -- the same people as before. if this helps alleviate their fears, then perhaps things will change for the better in those schools still dominated by fear.
Lea
> I'd rather have a computer doing the initial
/floored/. reason: it doesn't see anything. the people who see things are the school administrators, who may or may not have biases against particular students. you think they won't know or won't figure out fairly quickly what makes a child "disturbed" to the program? and, as impartial as they will try to be, it's not hard to be swayed when you already think someone is disturbed, to push them a bit over the edge in the ratings, purposefully or no.
> finger pointing. A machine doesn't discriminate
> on anything other than what it 'sees.' People
> are far less objective.
if it really worked like that, I'd be absolutely
I'm not quite sure about the program. It looks exactly like an old DOS program that I had where you ranked people 1-5 on things like intellegence, introvertedness, etc, and it came up with a profile. the technology in itself isn't bad -- and these people sound like they know what they're doing. however (and you knew that had to come in somewhere), it sounds like a pathetic substitute and surrogate for teachers, counselors, and administrators... and what this program does to a school is ultimately determined by them.
Lea
I had one of these during this past summer:
:)
1. make many modules for a modular reconfigurable robot
2. form them into a snake becasue the power supply takes both arms to carry and needs to be plugged into a wall
3. use robot as pet snake (worn around shoulders/neck for transport)
sure, I got some odd looks, but this was PARC -- people just wanted to play with it
Lea
they probably made an IPO :)
(of course, I was a bit too young to remember that, but...)
Lea
I've had the same problem. ordinarily, it's not a problem at all, but when the guy you're semi-dating says "I think of you as a guy" you've really got to wonder if you need to start wearing tighter shirts or something.
:) (especially since I've got my own geekguy -- and I only need one, thank you very much)
actually, most guys I know now seem to realize instantly that I'm female and STILL be able to hold an intellegent conversation with me without drooling! that's the happy medium I've been going for
on a side note, a lot of guyfriends pointed out this article and made offended noises to me. so it's not just dem women who are getting mad...
Lea
very nice. I posted a top 10 list of dangerous ideas (it's in response to Roblimo's message, which has been conveniently been moderated up, so it should be easy to find) which is something like this (although a lot longer)
also, thank you for using the "correct" (read: non-offensive) definition of the word "feminist". it's amazing how many people misinterpret it, including my sister. "I don't hate men, so I'm not a feminist". social progress in action!
Lea
while I believe you meant it lightly, I'll join the crowd of people who are calling it dangerous. while you are older than many of us who are making our way out into higher education/the workplace, I don't think this excuses your frankly outdated views. yes, it's nice to be taken care of, and to take care of someone in return. however, your lighthearted advice doesn't quite conceal a few (probably subliminal) biases in your mind. I'm not trying to flame you, but in the interests of the women out there, you might want to take a look at what I have to say. I'm very interested in your response, so please email or post back.
:)
:)
1. "don't waste your time on geek girls"
this holds two rather interesting assumptions - a) everyone who's reading this is either a) a heterosexual male or b) a homosexual female. as neither, I found the title quite striking. am I really a waste of time? my s.o. doesn't seem to think so, oddly enough.
2. "wouldn't it be nice if you found a woman who shares your interests? NO."
well, as you said in the post I'm responding to, you say your wife is a "talented artist and an adept computer user". apparenly she at least understands what you do, assuming that that's computers. one could also suppose that, forming a balanced, healthy relationship, you also share some interests of hers, perhaps in guns or art. while doing things outside of your normal sphere is healthy and interesting, see how long you can spend with a person who shares no interests with you. at least for me, that's not very long.
3. "She'd be obsessively coding or posting on Slashdot herself, and would brush you off when you needed her. What you really want is a woman who will be there for you when you get tired of staring at your monitor and need some loving, but will leave you alone and not demand your attention when you're busy."
rather one-sided, is it not? you reserve the right to interrupt her at any time, but you don't want her to do the same in return? I admit that this can be a problem in a geek-geek relationship, but I've seen it be even more of a problem in a geek-nongeek relationship. at least a geek understands when you're REALLY busy, and will keep you from working ALL the time, but allow you to get what is truly important done. it simply requires understanding.
4. "Men involved in activities that demand long periods of intense concentration (programmers, artists, writers, musicians, etc.) need women who will respect what they do and help them do it well, not women who compete with them."
so I am competition? for what? perhaps if a person is obsessed with being THE best at whatever she/he does, they would have a problem having a relationship with someone who also shared those interests. perhaps it is that person who has a problem, and not the geek commmunity at large. this is not a view I would expect in the nineties, but rather in the fifties. it harks back to the fear that boys have of meeting a girl who is better/smarter/tougher than they are, because they expect to be better/smarter/tougher by virtue of their sex. I, at least, look for a mate I respect highly, and if their proficiency is in my field, that is not a detractor.
5. "There are plenty of these women out there. They're as eager to find you as you are to find them."
the WWN would suggest otherwise
6. "instead of wasting your time on women with whom you cannot possibly build a long-term, mutually beneficial relationship"
who do you mean? the geek girls? I'd hope we are not to be dismissed from consideration so lightly.
7. "If I want to discuss PC hardware I do it with male friends, not with my wife."
I'd hate to assUme, but perhaps you have not had any sort of a relationship with a geek girl, including any sort of friendship. we may be "one of the guys" in some ways, but since we are certainly not male, I assume you're not referring to one of us. perhaps you will someday. we're not all bad.
8. "she'll let you know that, too (so you can dump her before you get too serious)"
if she finds you unattractive, she'll dump you, generally. no need for Macho Man to do it for her, so I would avoid jumping to conclusions.
9. "She took longer than most to develop in the chest department, but the results were worth waiting for."
as much as guys seem to be obsessed by breasts, I can't bring myself to believe you meant this as you phrased it. I don't agree with the general sentiment either, but you have a right to your opinion.
10. "Understanding women is harder than figuring out the hardest computer game, harder even than setting up a secure 200-client network running *BSD"
same goes for guys, you know.
now, many of your "life/relationship wisdom" nuggets are good ones, but quite a bit of the overtone is outdated and frankly a bit sexist. I'm not trying to insult you, that's just the way it looks to me, a geek girl of a younger generation. perhaps I've misinterpreted you, but that's neither here nor there.
I really do hope someone writes that woman piece, or even a balancing male piece, since many guys I know don't share many of your views (and brought this article to my attention becasue they were quite PO'd on my behalf).
Lea (real email: chialea@cory.eecs.berkeley.edu)
actually, your age was true a while ago, but it's WAY WAY WAY too high now. Now 40% of girls have had sex by the time they're 14 (according to one study). keeps getting lower all the time.
maybe becasue it's the only thing that's legal -- though I doubt that.
Lea
offtopic part:
I think everyone agrees abortion is bad. however, it is sometimes the best alternative. if everyone were as rational as you are, we wouldn't have all this trouble.
hmm. I think I'll have an abortion today. sounds fun.
yes, I'm pro-choice. I still think abortions are not a good thing, but I don't believe in dictating morality to people.
ontopic part:
well, if we go by the people who go around and shoot doctors, abortion is an unstablizing influence on certain sectors of society. is it illegal? NO.
we allow heated debates and the chance that people will get a little too dramatic (fight murder with murder!) and break laws they advocate in a stronger form because stabalization of society is not the end-all and be-all of our country.
after all, no one is really "pro-abortion". they're pro-choice. they are not likely to go shoot people becasue of it. of course, I would not have believed that people who believe abortion is murder would go and commit murder in a stronger form themselves, and be PROUD of it.
sorry, offtopic a bit.
Lea
true enough. does to me.
there are also a whole lot of other bad things that caffine does to you -- just check any Bio 1A text or AP Bio text. it's listed in there, along with the chart describing methods of birth control, including "withdrawal"*
* "Side effects: frustration in some"
Lea
the theory behind what you're describing is this (as well as I can understand/reproduce it):
ADD/ADHD people are already hyper/overstimulated. so, when you stimulate them some more, it's kinda like an overload, and the net effect is that you wrap around to the other end of the scale, i.e. calm.
however, IANAB (I am not a biologist)
Lea
xerox lost trademark status... whoever handles these things decided it was a common word, and so you can "xerox" a piece of paper with a xerox machine not made by Xerox, the company.
or so was my understanding, for, as always, IANAL
Lea
Targeting advertising in a home retail banking delivery service
A practical system and method for the remote distribution of financial services (e.g., home banking and bill-paying) involves distributing portable terminals to a user base. The terminals
include a multi-line display, keys "pointing to" lines on the display, and additional keys. Contact is established between the terminals and a central computer operated by a service provider, preferably over a dial-up telephone line and a packet data network. Information exchange between the central computer and the terminal solicits information from the terminal user related to requested financial services (e.g., for billpaying, the user provides payee selection and amount and his bank account PIN number). The central computer then transmits a message over a conventional ATM network debiting the user's bank account in real time, and may pay the specified payees the specified amount electronically or in other ways as appropriate. Payments and transfers may be scheduled in advance or on a periodic basis. Because the central computer interacts with the user's bank as a standard POS or ATM network node, no significant software changes are required at the banks' computers. The terminal interface is extremely user-friendly and incorporates some features of standard ATM user interfaces so as to reduce new user anxiety.
sneaky! if this is what they're claiming, probably some bank set up their online banking to look like an ATM. and "We recommend Netscape 4.0 or better" is on the page. Ha! Netscape would be "violating" the transport/rendering thing.
these patents sure are smoking crack. I wish there was some way to invalidate the invalid ones that didn't take a massive amount of money and time for the organiztion erroneously sued...
Lea
despite the recent (somewhat) sucess of companies going after Microsoft in the legal arena, going after Microsoft for something as specious as this sounds (so far) is just asking them to jump on you. And while they have their own branded unix, how much do you want to bet that they have some MS Office around in there... to me, anyways, Netscape looks like a better initial target, if it's about browser technology.
/else/ has done that! :)
I didn't see anything offhand in that article you reference that might explain patent infringement. the only thing that it looks like NCR brought to the table was another brand of unix to port the browser to, and an agreement so that Netscape would port the SuiteSpot server. looks like they paid Netscape so that they'd have an application on their OS. I'm sure no one
so far, anyways, I haven't seen anything resembling a valid patent that NCR held that Netscape violated. bring on the lawyers!
Lea