And let the kids suffer from lack of necessary supplies until the process of parents realizing what is going on, complaining to the administration, who goes to the schoolboard, who has to wait until their budget meeting in March to maybe give you more funds?
Yes, I'm sure a good teacher would have NO problem giving their students a substandard education while the red tape slowly unwinds itself. That's the problem with this whole argument - people on one side are saying "Teachers only HAVE to do X amount of work!" when the reality is, GOOD teachers wind up doing 5X amount of work. But sadly, they can't get paid more for doing a better job because the teacher's union is against merit pay.
And we all know that no corporation has ever sued anyone over something that's covered by fair use. Getting sued and winning the lawsuit are two different things.
So if your kid came up to you saying "Hey! I just had this awesome idea for a board game to learn chemistry! Want to hear it?" you'd just say "No no, bad child, go back to watching television or playing dodgeball"??
Of course not, you'd probably say (if you're a halfway decent parent) "That sounds like a neat idea, let's get out some art supplies and try to make one, and you can explain all the rules to me." And if it were really good, and they really really wanted to help other kids by trying to get it out into the world, would you tell them no no, your great idea must stay under wraps until you are 18?
Different kids think different things are fun. These kids might have had a ball creating that prototype, and the process of learning what's needed for a business could be really intriguing too. And don't tell me that they didn't enjoy going to some grown-up trade show and having adults shower them with attention (and possibly venture capital money). Sure, they should make sure that they don't miss out on other more "kid-like" stuff, but who says they can't play little league and run a business? Just because you couldn't have at their age doesn't mean they can't.
I put Greenpeace in the same category as PeTA - pushing their respective movements backwards, because they make everyone think that anyone who cares about the environment (or animals) is as batshit insane as they are. Spending more money on publicity for their crackpot campaigns than on actually helping anyone. Preaching to their little mostly-teenaged choir, not noticing that the masses are backing away slowly, not only from them but from other legitimate groups that just happen to share a few surface features but actually do a lot of good.
Some people like to whine about the clutter of having both a DVD player and a game system near their tv. Personally, my gamecube and SNES (especially the hard-to-balance stacks of its cartridge games) cause a lot more clutter than my DVD player, and that's one problem the Wii would fix!
Average teacher pay is $47K. And the Master's isn't irrelevant - you take out those loans and then see if you think it's irrelevant. I have more loans from my 2 years of M.A.Ed at a public school - even WITH an assistantship to cover tuition - than I do from my 5 years at one of the top (and most expensive) private universities, due to lack of need-based grant aid for Master's students. Most schools don't offer assistantships to Master's students either, making the load even heavier. A teacher can easily have enough loans to reduce their salary by $15K a year. (And yes, in some places a teacher makes more for having a Master's - but in some places, like New York, a Master's is required for all teachers.)
She was reprimanded for giving out her myspace page to students - if she hadn't, they would have found it anyhow. She might as well use it as a way to connect to them. And the new picture is slightly goofier than the old one, but still fairly innocuous. Sure, she probably didn't show the best judgment, but if she already had tenure (ie, worked in a district for 3-5 whole years) there's no way she could even be fired for this, let alone have her certification stripped. No one involved has to give her recommendations when she tries to get a job, but if she fulfilled the certification requirements she should be certified.
That photo still doesn't have any proof that there was either alcohol or underage drinkers involved. Apparently some of her "unprofessional behavior" was letting students go to her MySpace page - as though they wouldn't have found it on their own anyhow. If a teacher wants to keep something on the public web private from their students, they'd better not use their real name. If they do use their real name, they might as well use it as a tool to connect with their students (and make sure they don't have anything bad on it - y'know, like a goofy picture that MIGHT have involved alcohol).
It's also hard to prove from photos that she provided any of the alcohol, or (in pictures such as that one) that there was alcohol involved at all. If an 18-year-old goes to a party and drinks, is everyone over 21 who is at that party legally responsible?
But who knows, maybe there's a picture of her pouring a beer into the mouth of a guy reading a "Happy 20th Birthday" card.
Except that the plot doesn't seem to have much relation to The Lion King at all, except that he was separated from his parents. Which, by that standard, you could say the manga authors were ripping off Bambi or Dumbo.
You're lucky then. Mine regularly takes a minute or more to start up, and over 30 seconds to save a simple, small document. Not to mention the lags in the spreadsheet - I can easily enter 3-4 cels worth of data before it's finished showing the entry for the first cel. If I get too much futher ahead of it, it starts to lose data.
I'll admit, I recently d/led the newest version at work, and it does seem to be an improvement. Still not as fast as a normal app, but not head-bangingly slow.
Even if Apple were doing this (which they aren't), they don't have a spreadsheet yet. Appleworks had one, but it was pretty crappy compared to Excel or OOo. Personally, a spreadsheet for iWork is EXACTLY what I'm waiting for - I've been waiting on buying it specifically because I don't want to have to pay for it again, and I'll definitely want the spreadsheet when they finally release it.
Ugh, related to that last one, one that I hope is listed as a failure soon: Billboard trucks. Have you seen these? They're trucks with nothing on the back but a big flat sign with ads on both sides. Yay! Advertising that pollutes AND makes traffic worse! I actually haven't seen any of these in the past year, so maybe that's a good sign - or maybe they're just more popular in the south, where I no longer live.
I could see this being a hit on college campuses where the RIAA has started using big bad scare tactics, especially where it's resulted in restrictions on filesharing programs, etc. Free to the students, free to the school, legal, everyone's happy. And someone posted above that a few weeks after you download the song, you can get rid of the ads, too.
I can't (or don't know how to) see the whole article, only the abstract, though I can see a lot of lukesl's points just in there. But I can't see what doses of vitamins were used in any of the studies looked at - I've never been told not to take normal vitamin supplements, with doses of antioxidants around the RDA or even a bit above. It's only megadoses (like those crazy 10x RDA or more vitamin C tablets some people pop when they have colds) that are to be avoided.
I'm the one who doesn't have enough background knowledge, that's why I was asking for a brief, non-legalese explanation. See, not only am I not a lawyer, I have never even *hired* a lawyer. I've never even served on a jury or been to traffic court. Telling me to read the MPEP, you may as well tell me to read the bible in the original Aramaic. Sure, I could do it with some (quite a bit) of effort, but instead I'm asking someone to just tell me what the big deal with Jesus is all about.
I suppose, and feel free to provide your own interpretation, but I believe that the question has changed from "Is the invention non-obvious in view of the combined references," to "Is the invention non-obvious in view of one of ordinary skill in the art who has read and understood the references?"
This paragraph is basically what I was looking for, thank you.
I see. So they haven't really changed the definition of obvious necessarily, they've just shifted the burden of proof from the patent office proving it's obvious to the inventor/attorney proving it's non-obvious. And they're saying in this case that they didn't prove it was non-obvious. So if what counts as obvious isn't really so much what changed, that explains why I was so confused, because that's what I was looking for.
But, of course, this could lead to a slightly different definition of what counts as obvious, because things that were counted as non-obvious before almost automatically might find it harder to *prove* themselves non-obvious. Right?
I've always bought the standard ones at Home Depot (nvision I think is the brand?), and have never had a warm up period. I didn't even know it could be a problem. We did get one bulb that buzzed, but we returned it and they exchanged it for a silent one, no problem.
But then, I (and my husband) think "soft white" light is way too yellow in most situations, so we also get the mid-range ones that some people might find too blue. So I'm probably not one to comment on whether the HD bulbs are a good color or not. But they're cheap and don't seem to have any of the other problems people have mentioned.
There have been a lot of other similar studies done on both genders; many have already been cited in the comments if you'll scroll through.
It's become increasingly common to do single-gender studies. Why? Because it turns out our bodies work differently, who'dathunkit? And for decades, women suffered because the medical community assumed that what was true for men, is true for women. So, for instance, heart attacks in women went undiagnosed because they had different symptoms than men's heart attacks. So now to be on the safe side, anything that is suspected to work at all differently (which, since women have more problems with their bones then men, could easily include vitamin D) is done single-gender.
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Yes, I'm sure a good teacher would have NO problem giving their students a substandard education while the red tape slowly unwinds itself. That's the problem with this whole argument - people on one side are saying "Teachers only HAVE to do X amount of work!" when the reality is, GOOD teachers wind up doing 5X amount of work. But sadly, they can't get paid more for doing a better job because the teacher's union is against merit pay.
The quote at the bottom of the page is "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously."
And we all know that no corporation has ever sued anyone over something that's covered by fair use. Getting sued and winning the lawsuit are two different things.
Even if I had mod points, I'd need one for +1 Awesome Reference.
Of course not, you'd probably say (if you're a halfway decent parent) "That sounds like a neat idea, let's get out some art supplies and try to make one, and you can explain all the rules to me." And if it were really good, and they really really wanted to help other kids by trying to get it out into the world, would you tell them no no, your great idea must stay under wraps until you are 18?
Different kids think different things are fun. These kids might have had a ball creating that prototype, and the process of learning what's needed for a business could be really intriguing too. And don't tell me that they didn't enjoy going to some grown-up trade show and having adults shower them with attention (and possibly venture capital money). Sure, they should make sure that they don't miss out on other more "kid-like" stuff, but who says they can't play little league and run a business? Just because you couldn't have at their age doesn't mean they can't.
So then, the Hays Code wasn't censorship, either?
I hate 3D games, please to be giving me more top-view! (Played Minish Cap most recently, loved it. Really looking forward to Phantom Hourglass.)
I put Greenpeace in the same category as PeTA - pushing their respective movements backwards, because they make everyone think that anyone who cares about the environment (or animals) is as batshit insane as they are. Spending more money on publicity for their crackpot campaigns than on actually helping anyone. Preaching to their little mostly-teenaged choir, not noticing that the masses are backing away slowly, not only from them but from other legitimate groups that just happen to share a few surface features but actually do a lot of good.
Some people like to whine about the clutter of having both a DVD player and a game system near their tv. Personally, my gamecube and SNES (especially the hard-to-balance stacks of its cartridge games) cause a lot more clutter than my DVD player, and that's one problem the Wii would fix!
Average teacher pay is $47K. And the Master's isn't irrelevant - you take out those loans and then see if you think it's irrelevant. I have more loans from my 2 years of M.A.Ed at a public school - even WITH an assistantship to cover tuition - than I do from my 5 years at one of the top (and most expensive) private universities, due to lack of need-based grant aid for Master's students. Most schools don't offer assistantships to Master's students either, making the load even heavier. A teacher can easily have enough loans to reduce their salary by $15K a year. (And yes, in some places a teacher makes more for having a Master's - but in some places, like New York, a Master's is required for all teachers.)
She was reprimanded for giving out her myspace page to students - if she hadn't, they would have found it anyhow. She might as well use it as a way to connect to them. And the new picture is slightly goofier than the old one, but still fairly innocuous. Sure, she probably didn't show the best judgment, but if she already had tenure (ie, worked in a district for 3-5 whole years) there's no way she could even be fired for this, let alone have her certification stripped. No one involved has to give her recommendations when she tries to get a job, but if she fulfilled the certification requirements she should be certified.
That photo still doesn't have any proof that there was either alcohol or underage drinkers involved. Apparently some of her "unprofessional behavior" was letting students go to her MySpace page - as though they wouldn't have found it on their own anyhow. If a teacher wants to keep something on the public web private from their students, they'd better not use their real name. If they do use their real name, they might as well use it as a tool to connect with their students (and make sure they don't have anything bad on it - y'know, like a goofy picture that MIGHT have involved alcohol).
But who knows, maybe there's a picture of her pouring a beer into the mouth of a guy reading a "Happy 20th Birthday" card.
Except that the plot doesn't seem to have much relation to The Lion King at all, except that he was separated from his parents. Which, by that standard, you could say the manga authors were ripping off Bambi or Dumbo.
I'll admit, I recently d/led the newest version at work, and it does seem to be an improvement. Still not as fast as a normal app, but not head-bangingly slow.
Even if Apple were doing this (which they aren't), they don't have a spreadsheet yet. Appleworks had one, but it was pretty crappy compared to Excel or OOo. Personally, a spreadsheet for iWork is EXACTLY what I'm waiting for - I've been waiting on buying it specifically because I don't want to have to pay for it again, and I'll definitely want the spreadsheet when they finally release it.
Ugh, related to that last one, one that I hope is listed as a failure soon: Billboard trucks. Have you seen these? They're trucks with nothing on the back but a big flat sign with ads on both sides. Yay! Advertising that pollutes AND makes traffic worse! I actually haven't seen any of these in the past year, so maybe that's a good sign - or maybe they're just more popular in the south, where I no longer live.
I could see this being a hit on college campuses where the RIAA has started using big bad scare tactics, especially where it's resulted in restrictions on filesharing programs, etc. Free to the students, free to the school, legal, everyone's happy. And someone posted above that a few weeks after you download the song, you can get rid of the ads, too.
I can't (or don't know how to) see the whole article, only the abstract, though I can see a lot of lukesl's points just in there. But I can't see what doses of vitamins were used in any of the studies looked at - I've never been told not to take normal vitamin supplements, with doses of antioxidants around the RDA or even a bit above. It's only megadoses (like those crazy 10x RDA or more vitamin C tablets some people pop when they have colds) that are to be avoided.
I suppose, and feel free to provide your own interpretation, but I believe that the question has changed from "Is the invention non-obvious in view of the combined references," to "Is the invention non-obvious in view of one of ordinary skill in the art who has read and understood the references?"
This paragraph is basically what I was looking for, thank you.
But, of course, this could lead to a slightly different definition of what counts as obvious, because things that were counted as non-obvious before almost automatically might find it harder to *prove* themselves non-obvious. Right?
But then, I (and my husband) think "soft white" light is way too yellow in most situations, so we also get the mid-range ones that some people might find too blue. So I'm probably not one to comment on whether the HD bulbs are a good color or not. But they're cheap and don't seem to have any of the other problems people have mentioned.
Can someone give concise, easy-to-understand answers to these questions:
1. What was the old, "rigid" definition of obvious?
2. What does this decision change about that definition?
It's become increasingly common to do single-gender studies. Why? Because it turns out our bodies work differently, who'dathunkit? And for decades, women suffered because the medical community assumed that what was true for men, is true for women. So, for instance, heart attacks in women went undiagnosed because they had different symptoms than men's heart attacks. So now to be on the safe side, anything that is suspected to work at all differently (which, since women have more problems with their bones then men, could easily include vitamin D) is done single-gender.