The Randi challenge is open to everyone, you know, so it's hard to argue with a straight face (and an undamaged brain) that somehow the real dowsers just mysteriously slipped through the cracks, and all the thousands of studies picked just the wrong ones.
Quoting the application: "12. This offer is not open to any and all persons. Before being considered as an applicant, the person applying must satisfy two conditions: First, he/she must have a "media presence," which means having been published, written about, or known to the media in regard to his/her claimed abilities or powers. This can be established by producing articles, videos, books, or other published material that specifically addresses the person's abilities. Second, he/she must produce at least one signed document from an academic who has witnessed the powers or abilities of the person, and will validate that these powers or abilities have been verified." (my emphasis)
If you take the time and read the challenge applications forum you will see that once Randi realizes an applicant has a minimum chance of beating the challenge he starts changing the protocols making them confusing and harder than necessary. If that doesn't work they start acting pissed off and try provoking the applicant into a flame war that result in terminating the application.
WTF are Vonage lawyers doing, they should've ask for these obvious patents to be reviewed. I skimmed through these and all I saw were claims about doing something on the internet.
If somebody from Vonage is reading this, fire your lawyers and hire some good ones.
IMHO airplanes are obsolete technology and I mean the way they manage to fly. We already squeezed as much as we can from them and now we are at the point flying 200 miles takes longer than just driving. We need inventions that would make flying as easy as we drive automatic cars now. Two things that come to mind are:
1. A sort of force field to protect the vehicle in accidents: One of the reasons flying is so difficult is because of regulations based on the fact there is barely any chance of survival in case something goes wrong. 2. A gravity cancellation device: We should find a way of flying that doesn't use air lift, there is a reason to birds' limitations on flying.
We can fit a whole 1080p XViD movie into a single layer DVD, just need to come up with a format standard for menus, have a few hardware players support it and give a free license to the porn industry.
IMHO what we need is to stimulate human desire to win: An X-prize like challenge for the first electric car to go 500 or 1000, etc miles in a single charge or an electrical car race, something like Indianapolis e500 (electrical 500 miles). Maybe e-Nascar or Formula E
I don't buy games for my wii because of the price. At $49.99 I expect a great quality game and so far the good ones don't exploit the wiimote to its full potential.
Paypal can add an option for your donation account to verify by phone before accepting the charge. This way you call every donator to confirm their donation (and probably thank them) before their credit card is charged.
IMHO right there is where the FCC should get tough with cable companies. The mandate says they must provide a POD (cablecard) and this POD contains all the information required to access the subscribed channels. Requesting control over the software in the host device is overstepping the mandate. I think Tivo gave up and signed a deal with Comcast to get the certification. If I were Tivo I would have put out a press release that would've slashdotted causing a massive outcry to the authorities/congress forcing the FCC to step up.
On the other hand, the deployment of SDV is just rendering these tivos obsolete, unless there is a way to fix it through firmware they must be scrambling to build the Series 4.
The big problem with cablecard is manufacturers will not build devices with it because of the certification requisites. What if a manufacturer such as pcHDTV or SiliconDust adds a pcmcia slot to one of their models and just advertises it as a "programable POD module"?. They leave it to the open source community to come up with the implementation (maybe cablecard compatible) and flash it to the device to get it to work. The certification part is going to be hard and take lots of legal arm-wrestling but it is possible.
In the alternative we just create an alternative POD protocol that can be used for small cable operations or even encrypted OTA services (how many 1080i channels can you stuff in each available UHF frequency?, I bet Mark Cuban would be interested)
This article gave me an idea: A policy service like postgrey but to handle mail quotas per sender's ip. If you set your policy to a default of 10 mails per (unknown) sender by default, on their 11th they get a "45X Daily Mail Quota exceeded, please try again tomorrow".
This service should come with an easy to use interface to tweak quotas per sender's IP so you can allow all these mail-lists or high volume senders.
Has anybody used the "software is not patentable" defense against a patent troll already? Then somebody please use it and appeal all the way up. Breyer is hinting everybody that the Supreme Court is waiting for somebody to present this to them so this defense is going to be accepted and ruled upon.
Maybe not, but my w2k3 server box at work boots so slowly I am seriously considering putting it in a vm. It takes at lease 8 minutes from power on to desktop ready for usage, I have vmware server running on it and a vm I created with w2k3 server in it takes less than a minute to boot.
A few months ago I installed Fedora 6 in my home desktop, then migrated my w2k partition to a VM under vmware server. W2k used to take about 5 minutes to boot, inside vmware is ready in seconds in the same hardware, it boots so fast it's even faster to shutdown/power on than pausing/restoring the VM.
"A method of translating calls between the Internet and standard phones, call-waiting features and wireless handsets"
- So they have a patent on transcoding from/to VoIP?, there's got to be some prior art on that - Call waiting?... are you kidding me? - Wireless handsets?, how does vonage infringe that?, VoIP got nothing to do with wireless handsets.
Vonage needs to hire themselves some real lawyers, Boies seems pretty good at dragging lawsuits forever.
If there is so much drm-free quality music around the net, somebody should start a radio station that only plays music available drm-free. This station needs to operate just as any other cool radio station with good DJs and all so it can survive and expand to other major markets.
A radio station is the best way to promote this music and grow the market to a point big labels would have to bend over to get a piece of that cake.
With my previous employer I asked for permission to look for new opportunities, I explained I didn't have any offers in the table yet but I would like to explore the market for a position where I could "stretch my legs". They were cool about it mainly because of the way I handled it. Only after that day I posted my resume online, got a couple of interviews and an offer in a place I really liked. I gave the notice and they organized a goodbye lunch on my last day.
IMHO, it doesn't matter how they treat you, what it is important is how you treat them so you can leave with peace of mind.
(x) The police will not put up with it If we put enough pressure on congress to pass the law, we make sure to fund a department to take care of investigating this.
(x) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business Nope, you need proof to prosecute somebody. In this case your investigators operate undercover and puts orders for v1agr or whatever the spammer is selling. Once the transaction is completed you have proof to prosecute the seller.
(x) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email Does not apply, it has nothing to do with who controls email. Investigators receive spam, they order product, gotcha!
(x) Jurisdictional problems Lobby congress for a federal law
(x) Extreme profitability of spam This is exactly what we are fighting with this proposal, if hiring spammers to advertise is illegal, they won't get any money.
(x) Joe jobs and/or identity theft what % of spam come from these?
(x) Technically illiterate politicians That's what lobbies and letters to your congressman are for.
(x) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers Stupid enough to go to jail?
(x) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves Spammers don't matter, if they don't get hired they need to find another business.
(x) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical Why is it not practical?
(x) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem I don't see how this is a feel-good measure
(x) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough Ok, but it provides fresh meat to Big Bubba in cell 23A
(x) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work. Just sit on it for a while and you may see the light. It's not *THE* solution but I think, if properly implemented, may do some good.
1. Company offering product or service hires spammer
2. Spammer creates botnet by installing spyware in unsecured computers
3. Botnet sends spam
Pretty much any solution so far involves stopping step 3, the delivery when the real problem relies in step 1, we need to find ways to stop step 1 from happening. Lets make hiring spammers a criminal offence, the same way "murder for hire" is. You can catch them by just having undercover officers order the product/service.
I say let's make hiring spammer to advertise a product or service a Criminal Offense punishable by jail. It will stop U.S. companies from hiring spammers. Then we put pressure in foreign governments to pass similar laws.
If you are going to publish something you may regret you better don't publish it at all, once the genie is out of the bottle nothing can erase that information from people who have seen it.
Your electricity bill analogy actually doesn't work. In this case it is power GENERATORS that CHARGE YOU for electricity usage, they are like the content providers that charge a subscription to give you access. ISPs would be like the power TRANSMISION companies, and we pay a flat montly fee for that service (at least here in deregulated Texas)
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The Randi challenge is open to everyone, you know, so it's hard to argue with a straight face (and an undamaged brain) that somehow the real dowsers just mysteriously slipped through the cracks, and all the thousands of studies picked just the wrong ones.
Quoting the application:
"12. This offer is not open to any and all persons. Before being considered as an applicant, the person applying must satisfy two conditions: First, he/she must have a "media presence," which means having been published, written about, or known to the media in regard to his/her claimed abilities or powers. This can be established by producing articles, videos, books, or other published material that specifically addresses the person's abilities. Second, he/she must produce at least one signed document from an academic who has witnessed the powers or abilities of the person, and will validate that these powers or abilities have been verified." (my emphasis)
If you take the time and read the challenge applications forum you will see that once Randi realizes an applicant has a minimum chance of beating the challenge he starts changing the protocols making them confusing and harder than necessary. If that doesn't work they start acting pissed off and try provoking the applicant into a flame war that result in terminating the application.
WTF are Vonage lawyers doing, they should've ask for these obvious patents to be reviewed. I skimmed through these and all I saw were claims about doing something on the internet.
If somebody from Vonage is reading this, fire your lawyers and hire some good ones.
Then I guess we need to add:
3. Inertial dampeners
IMHO airplanes are obsolete technology and I mean the way they manage to fly. We already squeezed as much as we can from them and now we are at the point flying 200 miles takes longer than just driving. We need inventions that would make flying as easy as we drive automatic cars now. Two things that come to mind are:
1. A sort of force field to protect the vehicle in accidents: One of the reasons flying is so difficult is because of regulations based on the fact there is barely any chance of survival in case something goes wrong.
2. A gravity cancellation device: We should find a way of flying that doesn't use air lift, there is a reason to birds' limitations on flying.
Now, who is gonna come with these?
We can fit a whole 1080p XViD movie into a single layer DVD, just need to come up with a format standard for menus, have a few hardware players support it and give a free license to the porn industry.
IMHO what we need is to stimulate human desire to win: An X-prize like challenge for the first electric car to go 500 or 1000, etc miles in a single charge or an electrical car race, something like Indianapolis e500 (electrical 500 miles). Maybe e-Nascar or Formula E
I don't buy games for my wii because of the price. At $49.99 I expect a great quality game and so far the good ones don't exploit the wiimote to its full potential.
sir, you're a genious. I which I had mod points
Torchwood premieres on HDNet tonight. I guess the article was oriented to OTA TV.
Anyways, thanks for the reminder, just added it to my mythtv recording queue.
Paypal can add an option for your donation account to verify by phone before accepting the charge. This way you call every donator to confirm their donation (and probably thank them) before their credit card is charged.
IMHO right there is where the FCC should get tough with cable companies. The mandate says they must provide a POD (cablecard) and this POD contains all the information required to access the subscribed channels. Requesting control over the software in the host device is overstepping the mandate. I think Tivo gave up and signed a deal with Comcast to get the certification. If I were Tivo I would have put out a press release that would've slashdotted causing a massive outcry to the authorities/congress forcing the FCC to step up.
On the other hand, the deployment of SDV is just rendering these tivos obsolete, unless there is a way to fix it through firmware they must be scrambling to build the Series 4.
This is a little OT but...
The big problem with cablecard is manufacturers will not build devices with it because of the certification requisites. What if a manufacturer such as pcHDTV or SiliconDust adds a pcmcia slot to one of their models and just advertises it as a "programable POD module"?. They leave it to the open source community to come up with the implementation (maybe cablecard compatible) and flash it to the device to get it to work. The certification part is going to be hard and take lots of legal arm-wrestling but it is possible.
In the alternative we just create an alternative POD protocol that can be used for small cable operations or even encrypted OTA services (how many 1080i channels can you stuff in each available UHF frequency?, I bet Mark Cuban would be interested)
This article gave me an idea: A policy service like postgrey but to handle mail quotas per sender's ip. If you set your policy to a default of 10 mails per (unknown) sender by default, on their 11th they get a "45X Daily Mail Quota exceeded, please try again tomorrow".
This service should come with an easy to use interface to tweak quotas per sender's IP so you can allow all these mail-lists or high volume senders.
gotta go, need to call my patent lawyer...
easy, put vmware server or xen on it and add several virtual network cards... oh wait
Has anybody used the "software is not patentable" defense against a patent troll already? Then somebody please use it and appeal all the way up. Breyer is hinting everybody that the Supreme Court is waiting for somebody to present this to them so this defense is going to be accepted and ruled upon.
Maybe not, but my w2k3 server box at work boots so slowly I am seriously considering putting it in a vm. It takes at lease 8 minutes from power on to desktop ready for usage, I have vmware server running on it and a vm I created with w2k3 server in it takes less than a minute to boot. A few months ago I installed Fedora 6 in my home desktop, then migrated my w2k partition to a VM under vmware server. W2k used to take about 5 minutes to boot, inside vmware is ready in seconds in the same hardware, it boots so fast it's even faster to shutdown/power on than pausing/restoring the VM.
"A method of translating calls between the Internet and standard phones, call-waiting features and wireless handsets"
- So they have a patent on transcoding from/to VoIP?, there's got to be some prior art on that
- Call waiting?... are you kidding me?
- Wireless handsets?, how does vonage infringe that?, VoIP got nothing to do with wireless handsets.
Vonage needs to hire themselves some real lawyers, Boies seems pretty good at dragging lawsuits forever.
If there is so much drm-free quality music around the net, somebody should start a radio station that only plays music available drm-free. This station needs to operate just as any other cool radio station with good DJs and all so it can survive and expand to other major markets.
A radio station is the best way to promote this music and grow the market to a point big labels would have to bend over to get a piece of that cake.
With my previous employer I asked for permission to look for new opportunities, I explained I didn't have any offers in the table yet but I would like to explore the market for a position where I could "stretch my legs". They were cool about it mainly because of the way I handled it. Only after that day I posted my resume online, got a couple of interviews and an offer in a place I really liked. I gave the notice and they organized a goodbye lunch on my last day.
IMHO, it doesn't matter how they treat you, what it is important is how you treat them so you can leave with peace of mind.
Done already, just google "porn tube"
(x) The police will not put up with it
If we put enough pressure on congress to pass the law, we make sure to fund a department to take care of investigating this.
(x) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
Nope, you need proof to prosecute somebody. In this case your investigators operate undercover and puts orders for v1agr or whatever the spammer is selling. Once the transaction is completed you have proof to prosecute the seller.
(x) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
Does not apply, it has nothing to do with who controls email. Investigators receive spam, they order product, gotcha!
(x) Jurisdictional problems
Lobby congress for a federal law
(x) Extreme profitability of spam
This is exactly what we are fighting with this proposal, if hiring spammers to advertise is illegal, they won't get any money.
(x) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
what % of spam come from these?
(x) Technically illiterate politicians
That's what lobbies and letters to your congressman are for.
(x) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
Stupid enough to go to jail?
(x) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
Spammers don't matter, if they don't get hired they need to find another business.
(x) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever
been shown practical
Why is it not practical?
(x) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
I don't see how this is a feel-good measure
(x) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
Ok, but it provides fresh meat to Big Bubba in cell 23A
(x) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
Just sit on it for a while and you may see the light. It's not *THE* solution but I think, if properly implemented, may do some good.
1. Company offering product or service hires spammer 2. Spammer creates botnet by installing spyware in unsecured computers 3. Botnet sends spam Pretty much any solution so far involves stopping step 3, the delivery when the real problem relies in step 1, we need to find ways to stop step 1 from happening. Lets make hiring spammers a criminal offence, the same way "murder for hire" is. You can catch them by just having undercover officers order the product/service. I say let's make hiring spammer to advertise a product or service a Criminal Offense punishable by jail. It will stop U.S. companies from hiring spammers. Then we put pressure in foreign governments to pass similar laws.
If you are going to publish something you may regret you better don't publish it at all, once the genie is out of the bottle nothing can erase that information from people who have seen it.
Your electricity bill analogy actually doesn't work. In this case it is power GENERATORS that CHARGE YOU for electricity usage, they are like the content providers that charge a subscription to give you access. ISPs would be like the power TRANSMISION companies, and we pay a flat montly fee for that service (at least here in deregulated Texas)