Please note that patent non-obviousness applies to the invention itself, not the problem being solved. If someone solves a problem "everyone" knows about, it's completely patentable as long as the solution they provide is not obvious to someone in the same field.
I agree with everything up until the last line. "Gun-nuts" as you call them are not authoritarian as a rule. In fact, it's quite the opposite. While some gun-rights people want their guns for hunting, many want them to be able to defend themselves from the government, and would be against authority and certainly against the federal government's authoritarianism.
On the other hand, I hope you're not under the illusion that Bush and authoritarianism are tied together either. The Democrats want to control each individual as much as the Republicans. In the Democrats' case, they want to help the disadvantaged. The only way they will get that is to enact more social programs that control more and more of the population's activities.
Bush's administration was removing rights with the supposed intention of making everyone safer, and the Democrats will continue it with the supposed intention of helping those who can't take care of themselves. Both are authoritarian, both are contrary to the Constitution.
Just to be a programmer, here: Just because the vote occurs on the second Tuesday of November doesn't necessarily mean that the second Wednesday of the month is the next day. (For instance, if Nov. 1st is a Wednesday.)
Better than RedHat documentation
on
Running Xen
·
· Score: 2, Informative
The problem is not that China's government is an enemy of ours, it's that they are an enemy of their own people. Those in the government certainly don't see it that way, they justify their violations of human rights as something for the greater good. Those that support the government can't really be trusted because they tend to get their opinion from the data in the press.
The free world decided long ago that government controlling the press would be bad for citizens because they will not be free to make their own decisions. The government of China is therefore evil with respect to free press and free speech, and that is the subject of the debate with regard to Google and Yahoo's actions.
It's like victimizing royalty by taking away land they aren't using so that commoners can hunt for food. There's almost no relation here. Land is not created by that royalty and land is necessary in order to have food, which is essential for survival. Neither of these are true for entertainment.
Being civilized means respecting the rights of others to life and liberty - it doesn't mean giving others the right to be rich. I have no problem with people being rich but I feel no need to defend their wealth. The "right to be rich" is exactly what is meant by the rights of life and liberty. If someone can take away your property or prevent you from controlling it, it's not really yours, is it?
I don't believe that being rich makes them more productive so from my point of view it's better if they have to continue struggling for their wealth by doing useful things like producing more music, movies, and other cultural resources. Sitting on their ass enjoying their wealth isn't really a boon for humanity although most of us wouldn't mind being able to do so. And yet there's no reason for them to be productive in the first place if they can't control and keep what they earn through doing so.
I'm not defending the media companies, who rarely produce anything worthwhile in the first place and only have control over artists' creations because of their monopoly. But your description of production and property is extremely flawed.
Unfortunately, Grand Central uses Flash for just about everything, from listening to voicemails to placing a call. And it's a damned shame, because it would be so much better without the Flash.
And apparently the reason McDonalds keeps their coffee hotter that other restaurants is that the hotter it is, the longer it can sit on the burner after being brewed without the flavor degrading.
So they saved money by keeping it that hot. And it was probably a LOT more than the reward in the lawsuit.
I have never heard an American pronounce it as "sodda" though I do not live in the New England area, where they leave off the ending "r" of every word. I've lived on the west coast (California), east coast (Philadelphia), Florida, Montana, and midwest (Ohio), and I've only heard it pronounced "sodder".
On top of that, the word comes from Old French soudure, so it was always pronounced without the "L". Those that add the L are mispronouncing.
That's correct, in theory what is essentially packet loss should just cause artifacts at worst. However, many of us remember the stories about the first generation of tuners that would fail completely and even lock up when there was weak signal or too much interference. One would hope that all of the basic bugs like this have been ironed out, but I wouldn't assume so.
Good to know. I wasn't sure about that, since I've never seen a CDMA phone that wasn't a Verizon-branded version.
BREW is not at all an operating system, it's a development platform
While that's technically true, everyone at work speaks about BREW as a platform that includes the OS. According to Wikipedia, it's more of a psuedo-OS, as it normally (maybe always?) runs on top of REX RTOS.
There are no Bluetooth restrictions inherent to BREW.
It doesn't sound like it, but I've not seen a BREW phone that does do ObEx. I'm more inclined to believe that Verizon locks that feature down.
Every other CDMA carrier (e.g., Alltel and US Cellular in the US) ships the RAZR with the more-or-less-stock Motorola firmware, which supports ObEx, &c., just fine. You can use these firmware versions to flash Verizon-provided RAZRs.
From what I'm seeing on various hacking sites, you don't even have to flash it to use the P2K tools. So apparently even the BREW phones run the P2K OS but not the user interface.
That's a good question. As far as I know, the OS that all other RAZRs ship with is called P2K (Platform 2000) and as far as I've heard, it only supports GSM. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.)
The OS that Verizon uses on every phone is BREW, created by Qualcomm. Its restrictions (such as ObEx not working) may actually be a limitation of the software. (I don't know, I'm just conjecturing.) Verizon uses it because it supports CDMA. In fact, Qualcomm being the originator of the US CDMA standard, it was at least the earliest software that supported CDMA.
First, Apple needs a retailer that will offer the devices for sale alongside other comparable phones. They do not want to sell only to existing Apple customers. All large electronics retailers carry phones from one or more carriers, *never* unlocked GSM variants.
Second, the device is useless without a data plan that has either a high limit or no limit. The carriers have kept that locked down.
The only way Apple was going to break into this market is through partnership with a carrier. And the carrier insisted that the phones be exclusive to their network. A compromise was made, with an exclusive period that expires. In addition, it seems that Apple insisted that the device have no subsidy by the carrier. The retail cost is the same regardless of whether you want a contract with the carrier. However, because of their agreement with the carrier, they don't have to lock down their sales and insist that you sign up in the store...they know that you can't use the device (at all) unless it is activated by the carrier.
All of this is caused by the stranglehold that the carriers have on the North American market. Apple has made great strides in this case in breaking that stranglehold, in excluding a subsidy payment as well as selling the handset directly. Their actions here will have repercussions in the mobile industry that may even break the hold that the carriers have on the market.
I also want to point out that Apple did not exactly have a choice of carrier with which to partner for this device. Verizon does not use GSM, so Apple would likely have avoided engineering a device that works only on one continent. Sprint uses but AFAIK is phasing out all GSM on their network. Nextel is iDen which has limited coverage and certainly limited acceptance worldwide. T-Mobile has fairly limited coverage on the continent.
All that you are saying ignores the fact that ISO exists to evaluate standards and approve them. The actions of Microsoft (or its partners) circumvented the process, after the members had evaluated the standard and found it lacking. This was a technical discussion and the standard was found to be contradictory and confusing. There already exist other standards (or at least one) that provide the same features without being contradictory and confusing.
So, being that you are a Microsoft partner, I'm not surprised in the least by your statement that, "If my business stood to make $50,000 next year alone in projects supporting a particular format...I'd spend $2,500 to cast another vote in my direction." Considering that this format is going to cost companies and individuals worldwide long-term in a number of ways: cost to purchase software (from Microsoft, since it's the only one to implement it "fully"), cost to figure out how to retrieve those documents later, cost to support an infrastructure (Windows PCs) that could potentially be replaced with something less costly.
As I said, your attitude is the problem at Microsoft. As a partner, you're selling a product that you have to push on people because they wouldn't otherwise want it.
I shouldn't be able to write a check and cast a vote. That damages the integrity of the process. But if I can do it, why would you complain that I did it? Are you trolling? The answer is, "I will complain that you did that unethical thing because it was unethical for you to do it, and therefore you should not have done it." I don't mean to be condescending here, but I feel like I'm explaining ethics to one of my children. Just because you are not stopped from doing something by the rules does not mean that you should do it with impudence.
Rules and laws do not define all that is right and wrong, they are only put in place to stop abuses. Before law enters the picture, there is first personal and professional integrity.
Just because the rules don't specify that something can't be done does not mean that it is acceptable or moral to do that thing. It was a violation of the spirit of those rules, regardless of how they were written. Microsoft did something reprehensible in messing with ISO in this way.
Your mindset is the real problem with Microsoft. You think that just because the government hasn't stepped in to stop you that it's acceptable to continue doing things that at the very least bend the laws and certainly are not moral or just. The government should not have to step in to fix your own ethics, they're YOURS.
You're stretching morality further and further, and eventually it will cause enough outcry that something will be done. But it would never occur to you to just act morally and do what you know is right instead of trying to screw your customer and pull the wool over everyone's eyes. It would help you in the long run. There's a reason that Google is winning in the markets they step in to. They're not assholes.
Riiight. Look everybody, I've been cut off from the Inter-tubes!
It was never required, somebody made a bad decision and included it on some CD years ago. I've never seen the CD or its effects, and I used to do PC support for dozens of people.
Maybe Apple should provide a filter like this for my Mac! It sure would be nice if I didn't have to hear about the failure of the N***** or how the iPhone *will never need a new battery* or how much Jobs *is great*.
What Microsoft product was a good Mac app? All of the Microsoft products I used on the Mac were slow, bloated, broke Mac UI standards, and didn't use Mac hotkey standards.
For example, in Excel on Windows, you press F2 to edit a cell. However, in Excel for Mac, you press Ctrl+U. Why? Damn good question, because F2 exists on Mac keyboards and Ctrl+U means underline in Office for Windows.
I agree that Quicktime for Windows is not so great. Until I became an Apple user I avoided Quicktime like it was the plague. If it was installed, however, all you had to do was weed through the preference window to disable the tray icon. For the life of me, I have no idea why that damned thing exists. Quicktime for Mac doesn't have that problem.
Slashdot Mirror
In no particular order,
Please note that patent non-obviousness applies to the invention itself, not the problem being solved. If someone solves a problem "everyone" knows about, it's completely patentable as long as the solution they provide is not obvious to someone in the same field.
I agree with everything up until the last line. "Gun-nuts" as you call them are not authoritarian as a rule. In fact, it's quite the opposite. While some gun-rights people want their guns for hunting, many want them to be able to defend themselves from the government, and would be against authority and certainly against the federal government's authoritarianism.
On the other hand, I hope you're not under the illusion that Bush and authoritarianism are tied together either. The Democrats want to control each individual as much as the Republicans. In the Democrats' case, they want to help the disadvantaged. The only way they will get that is to enact more social programs that control more and more of the population's activities.
Bush's administration was removing rights with the supposed intention of making everyone safer, and the Democrats will continue it with the supposed intention of helping those who can't take care of themselves. Both are authoritarian, both are contrary to the Constitution.
Just to be a programmer, here: Just because the vote occurs on the second Tuesday of November doesn't necessarily mean that the second Wednesday of the month is the next day. (For instance, if Nov. 1st is a Wednesday.)
The book HAS to be better than the documentation that RedHat provides for RHEL 5 Virtualization. It ranks among the worst-written, most useless documents I've read in a long time.
Linux. According to one of mine:
Linux [hostname that I removed] 2.4.21-9.4.4.65.0smp #2 SMP Mon Jan 28 19:08:25 PST 2008 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
The problem is not that China's government is an enemy of ours, it's that they are an enemy of their own people. Those in the government certainly don't see it that way, they justify their violations of human rights as something for the greater good. Those that support the government can't really be trusted because they tend to get their opinion from the data in the press.
The free world decided long ago that government controlling the press would be bad for citizens because they will not be free to make their own decisions. The government of China is therefore evil with respect to free press and free speech, and that is the subject of the debate with regard to Google and Yahoo's actions.
I don't believe that being rich makes them more productive so from my point of view it's better if they have to continue struggling for their wealth by doing useful things like producing more music, movies, and other cultural resources. Sitting on their ass enjoying their wealth isn't really a boon for humanity although most of us wouldn't mind being able to do so. And yet there's no reason for them to be productive in the first place if they can't control and keep what they earn through doing so.
I'm not defending the media companies, who rarely produce anything worthwhile in the first place and only have control over artists' creations because of their monopoly. But your description of production and property is extremely flawed.
Unfortunately, Grand Central uses Flash for just about everything, from listening to voicemails to placing a call. And it's a damned shame, because it would be so much better without the Flash.
Poser! Kif didn't say "sir"!
maniacal
manacle
And apparently the reason McDonalds keeps their coffee hotter that other restaurants is that the hotter it is, the longer it can sit on the burner after being brewed without the flavor degrading.
So they saved money by keeping it that hot. And it was probably a LOT more than the reward in the lawsuit.
I have never heard an American pronounce it as "sodda" though I do not live in the New England area, where they leave off the ending "r" of every word. I've lived on the west coast (California), east coast (Philadelphia), Florida, Montana, and midwest (Ohio), and I've only heard it pronounced "sodder".
On top of that, the word comes from Old French soudure, so it was always pronounced without the "L". Those that add the L are mispronouncing.
That's correct, in theory what is essentially packet loss should just cause artifacts at worst. However, many of us remember the stories about the first generation of tuners that would fail completely and even lock up when there was weak signal or too much interference. One would hope that all of the basic bugs like this have been ironed out, but I wouldn't assume so.
You wouldn't steal a handbag!
You wouldn't steal a car!
You wouldn't steal a baby!
You wouldn't shoot a policeman
and then steal his helmet.
You wouldn't go to the toilet in his helmet!
And then send it to the policeman's grieving widow.
And then steal it again!
That's a good question. As far as I know, the OS that all other RAZRs ship with is called P2K (Platform 2000) and as far as I've heard, it only supports GSM. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.)
The OS that Verizon uses on every phone is BREW, created by Qualcomm. Its restrictions (such as ObEx not working) may actually be a limitation of the software. (I don't know, I'm just conjecturing.) Verizon uses it because it supports CDMA. In fact, Qualcomm being the originator of the US CDMA standard, it was at least the earliest software that supported CDMA.
Perhaps it's because 6 * 9 = 54.
First, Apple needs a retailer that will offer the devices for sale alongside other comparable phones. They do not want to sell only to existing Apple customers. All large electronics retailers carry phones from one or more carriers, *never* unlocked GSM variants.
Second, the device is useless without a data plan that has either a high limit or no limit. The carriers have kept that locked down.
The only way Apple was going to break into this market is through partnership with a carrier. And the carrier insisted that the phones be exclusive to their network. A compromise was made, with an exclusive period that expires. In addition, it seems that Apple insisted that the device have no subsidy by the carrier. The retail cost is the same regardless of whether you want a contract with the carrier. However, because of their agreement with the carrier, they don't have to lock down their sales and insist that you sign up in the store...they know that you can't use the device (at all) unless it is activated by the carrier.
All of this is caused by the stranglehold that the carriers have on the North American market. Apple has made great strides in this case in breaking that stranglehold, in excluding a subsidy payment as well as selling the handset directly. Their actions here will have repercussions in the mobile industry that may even break the hold that the carriers have on the market.
I also want to point out that Apple did not exactly have a choice of carrier with which to partner for this device. Verizon does not use GSM, so Apple would likely have avoided engineering a device that works only on one continent. Sprint uses but AFAIK is phasing out all GSM on their network. Nextel is iDen which has limited coverage and certainly limited acceptance worldwide. T-Mobile has fairly limited coverage on the continent.
Wha?
So, being that you are a Microsoft partner, I'm not surprised in the least by your statement that, "If my business stood to make $50,000 next year alone in projects supporting a particular format...I'd spend $2,500 to cast another vote in my direction." Considering that this format is going to cost companies and individuals worldwide long-term in a number of ways: cost to purchase software (from Microsoft, since it's the only one to implement it "fully"), cost to figure out how to retrieve those documents later, cost to support an infrastructure (Windows PCs) that could potentially be replaced with something less costly.
As I said, your attitude is the problem at Microsoft. As a partner, you're selling a product that you have to push on people because they wouldn't otherwise want it. I shouldn't be able to write a check and cast a vote. That damages the integrity of the process. But if I can do it, why would you complain that I did it? Are you trolling? The answer is, "I will complain that you did that unethical thing because it was unethical for you to do it, and therefore you should not have done it." I don't mean to be condescending here, but I feel like I'm explaining ethics to one of my children. Just because you are not stopped from doing something by the rules does not mean that you should do it with impudence.
Rules and laws do not define all that is right and wrong, they are only put in place to stop abuses. Before law enters the picture, there is first personal and professional integrity.
Just because the rules don't specify that something can't be done does not mean that it is acceptable or moral to do that thing. It was a violation of the spirit of those rules, regardless of how they were written. Microsoft did something reprehensible in messing with ISO in this way.
Your mindset is the real problem with Microsoft. You think that just because the government hasn't stepped in to stop you that it's acceptable to continue doing things that at the very least bend the laws and certainly are not moral or just. The government should not have to step in to fix your own ethics, they're YOURS.
You're stretching morality further and further, and eventually it will cause enough outcry that something will be done. But it would never occur to you to just act morally and do what you know is right instead of trying to screw your customer and pull the wool over everyone's eyes. It would help you in the long run. There's a reason that Google is winning in the markets they step in to. They're not assholes.
It sounds to me like you know what the limit is. What is the limit?
Or are you joking? About that part, I mean.
Riiight. Look everybody, I've been cut off from the Inter-tubes!
It was never required, somebody made a bad decision and included it on some CD years ago. I've never seen the CD or its effects, and I used to do PC support for dozens of people.
Maybe Apple should provide a filter like this for my Mac! It sure would be nice if I didn't have to hear about the failure of the N***** or how the iPhone *will never need a new battery* or how much Jobs *is great*.
What Microsoft product was a good Mac app? All of the Microsoft products I used on the Mac were slow, bloated, broke Mac UI standards, and didn't use Mac hotkey standards.
For example, in Excel on Windows, you press F2 to edit a cell. However, in Excel for Mac, you press Ctrl+U. Why? Damn good question, because F2 exists on Mac keyboards and Ctrl+U means underline in Office for Windows.
I agree that Quicktime for Windows is not so great. Until I became an Apple user I avoided Quicktime like it was the plague. If it was installed, however, all you had to do was weed through the preference window to disable the tray icon. For the life of me, I have no idea why that damned thing exists. Quicktime for Mac doesn't have that problem.