Not true. The U.S. patent system is based on a "first to invent" doctrine, not "first to file."
Applying for a patent often serves as proof that you had indeed invented something at a certain time (at least the filing date), and creates a bit of a barrier for someone else to prove that they invented it earlier (since they'd need to conclusively demonstrate that they had done it before you had), but it's not unheard of or even especially uncommon historically.
That's the whole idea behind 'prior art' in the U.S.: if you can demonstrate that you, or somebody else, had invented something and published it before the person who got the patent for it did, then the patent can be ruled invalid.
Technically you're right. Practically you're wrong. With the current court system patent cases are heard by special courts made up entirely of patent attorneys whose primary interest appears to be expanding the patent system so as to make it a boom town for patent lawyers getting rich. To invalidate a patent on prior art the patent claims are interpreted extremely narrowly. To be in violation of the patent the patent claims are interpreted very broadly. Obviousness is not even considered. With the patent office basically rubber stamping approval of patent applications a lot a idiotic patents are being approved. Add to that patent cases are all heard on the basis that since the patents were granted they must be considered valid by the courts until proven otherwise and it becomes very expensive to fight a patent violation claim against you even for blatantly invalid patents. The RIM case is a perfect example. No matter how bad the RIM screwed up the case the fact that the patent office made a preliminary review determination that the patents were invalid the court should have stayed the case without any for of injunction until the final determination of the validity of the patents by the patent office. Instead NTP made well over half a billion dollars on invalid patents.
The point I'm making is that the US patent system is based on patent lawyers as judges making sure their fellow patent lawyers get rich and nothing else. The best way out is to impose severe penalties on anyone who files for a patent that is latter determined to be invalid and censor and impose sanctions on any lawyers who were involved in the filing or enforcement. This will put the burden of determining the validity of a patent on the person applying for the patent rather than an overworked patent clerk working on a quota system. Also the person applying for the patent is likely to have a far greater knowledge of the field the patent applies to than a patent clerk.
MS has already tried the FUD of scaring people away. They've already cried wolf. Have you seen SCO's stock price lately?
And the press has reported that they have gotten a fair number of OSS customers to sign licensing agreements. One theory is they started this again because the rate of those license agreements slowed down. If Microsoft establishes enough of a precedent with these license agreements they essentially control OSS (in the US) through the ability to not license the patents or at least make the license agreements cost more than going with Microsoft products. And the best part is with todays patent system in the US the patents don't even have to be valid. Just ask RIM. All Microsoft has to do is make the initial cost of the license agreement cost less than fighting it. Once they have a company on the hook there is very little chance of them successfully fighting so Microsoft can jack up the prices to the point that using OSS is cost prohibitive. Or even outright refuse to renew the patent licenses.
SCO was a major frontal attack on OSS that cost Microsoft mere pocket change of $40,000,000. It was a long shot and it probably didn't go as well as they hoped so they've switched from the frontal attack to infiltration tactics and guerrilla warfare. This could easily destroy the OSS industry in the US and in the process pretty much trash the entire technology industry there also. If you don't think so consider the fact that any tech company that becomes successful enough to show up on the radar immediately gets attacked and ends up spending more on the resource sinkhole of lawyers than they spend on R&D for improving their products. Given that in the tech industry things become obsolete in a matter of months Europe, India, Russia and China will be flying past them before the first hearings on the lawsuits start.
bad patents aren't enforceable. That's what makes the system liveable.
Yeah, right... Tell that one to RIM or Vonage for just 2 quick ones off the top of my head. I could go through patents and find thousands of down right idiotic patents that have been licensed by people simple because it was cheaper than fighting. But I won't because it would mean triple damages for willful infringement if I actually researched patents. Starting a companying without a huge warchest to fight patent litigation is like entering a minefield with in your underwear with a fork. Yeah, the system is real livable.
Imagine not having any stimulus to tell you that putting your hand in front of a blow torch is a bad idea. Not accidentally killing yourself becomes a bit of a challenge. Pain is an excellent instructional tool.
This is why I'm all for corporal punishment. Pain is nature's way of telling you you're doing something wrong. Let's use nature's tools.
Something about it just seems plain wrong, and looks like an admission of guilt towards a contention that probably does not exist (the assertion of MSFT somehow owning IP to Linux or OS tech).
Are you kidding? Of course Microsoft owns patents that cover things in Linux. The way the patent office is rubber stamping patent applications as fast as they can replace their ink pads and the fact that Microsoft files for thousands of patents yearly means it's likely Microsoft has a patent that would cover any non-trivial software out there (and probably a lot of trivial software). Only the MAD effect and the fact that Microsoft has enemies that have more patents than they do keeps them from pushing the button. I mean for FSM's sake, they issued a patent on double linked lists. What makes you think Microsoft hasn't slipped through multiple patents that cover trivial crap that's used in Linux?
How does that make my argument fallacious? It just proves my point precisely. A more complex machine means even more confusing manuals, meaning all the more reason not be expected to memorise the means to correctly operate it without having to rely on those manuals.
It's fallacious because you're saying it should be as easy to operate a Computer as it is a drill. I've never seen a more than trivial app where the menus, windows and tabs intuitively led you to what you were looking for and the more complex the app the more confusing and arbitrary the menus, windows and tab are going to be. It's easier to find an arcane feature by typing in "/" in a man page than to search through menus to fine where it's hidden or looking through a 15 pound book and the man page is there whenever I need it.
Reference information shouldn't be necessary. It can be useful though. As I stated quite clearly, the help file is there as a backup if you don't understand the label or the context-sensitive tooltip or any other text that may be associated with it in the GUI itself. You talk about finding controls and layers of menus as if it's a maze. Most decent apps will provide any option within three menus/dialogs. Menus and dialogs which are clearly labeled. Contrast this with "man vi". OK, now I'm looking at 428 pages of prose, listing approximately 60 switches, of which less than half have long options meaning I have to read the text associated with each of those to see if it does what I want. Yeah, that's better...
You're arguing in circles. You say you shouldn't need manuals and you shouldn't need to memorize but somehow all knowledge of how to use and configure an app should just magically appear in your head. If you're saying someone who has never used a computer before is going to be able to sit down and "intuitively" figure out how to use a menu very well know what all the words in a menu mean I call bullshit. If Windows is so intuitive why are there shelves and shelves of Windows books in every technical book store. You find the GUI in Word easy because you've been using it for a long time. For someone who never used the app it's a maze of twisty passages. It's "intuitive" to you because you've had years of training to learn that "intuition". Vi is "intuitive" to me for the same reason. Neither is more "intuitive" to someone who has never used a computer before (well I'll give some on vi but it's a bad example). And I've encountered many more GUIs that were outright obtuse than I have man pages that were obtuse.
A GUI tool is only slower than a CLI app if you already know your way around the CLI app and remember all relevant switches. Otherwise you've got a lot of reading to do. Even if you do know your way around your CLI it's no guarantee since, as I mentioned previously, CLI apps are typically limited by their interfaces to focusing on a single operation or subtask meaning you'll often need several of them to perform a single practical task.
Man you've just blown all your credibility by claiming that a CLI is more limited than a GUI interface. The only place this holds true is in the Windows world where the reason they don't give you a usable CLI is so they can limit what you're able to do. A CLI is only slower if you have no idea how to use the command and you've memorized the way through the twisted maze of menus, windows and tabs to find what you want to do. If you have to do something more than three time in a month the CLI is always faster because you'll remember and just have to simple type some stuff and hit return. With a GUI you're fishing and clicking with the mouse before you get to where you can type in the information. Instead of memorizing commands you've memorized what all those menu words mean.
As for the Linux vs. Windows stuff, that has no relevance to what I or the GP's were discussing. This isn't about Linux vs. Windows, it's about GUIs being the more practical means of interface for
I bet he's wired differently. As am I. As are the vast majority of people on this planet. We see computers above all else as tools to do things, not something to be investigated in and of themselves. Sure, plenty of people such as myself might be interested in how they work might even program them, but the primary reason to use a computer is to complete a task of some kind, even if that task is just playing a game and having fun. We don't want to research the tools while using them, we just want to use them.
So I guess knowledge just magically jumps into your head. Must be nice. I know whether it's a GUI tool or the command line I have to research how to configure and do things on my computers. I find a set of clear concise documented tools much easier to use than a maze of undocumented menus, windows and tabs.
No regular person wants to read a manual either. How would you feel if your power drill disassembled itself each month and you had to read a manual of randomly arrowed diagrams and Korean instructions, would you still appreciate "researching tools while using them"? Because that's what man pages are to the common computer user: an absolute mess of technical terms and presumed prior knowledge that can only be half understood unless you're willing to take your computer use up from casual user to demi-expert. Most users aren't willing to do that, and there's absolutely no reason they should.
When's the last time you used your drill for to track your expenses or edit a picture or do your taxes or research refrigerators? You know what? I think a computer just might be a just little more complex than a drill. Kind of makes your comparison a little fallacious.
No useful reference information in MS Word? I haven't used it in a long time but still I find that very hard to believe. Even if by some chance MS Word doesn't provide that info almost any and every other half-decent GUI app does, and in far more intuitive ways than any CLI app I've seen. For one thing the nature of the options is implictly given by the type of control they use (ie. checkbox, editbox, choice dropdown, etc.), the controls are invariably labelled of course, they'll also typically have a context-sensitive help in the dialog itself (in Windows this would be accessible from the "?" button, in GNOME it's just a mouse-over). If that doesn't give you enough information there's always a help file which gives full documentation.
Reference information? I thought you were the one who didn't feel that kind of thing should be necessary? It's not a matter of using the control. It's a matter of finding the control for what you're trying to change. It's the difference between digging through layer upon layer of menus, windows and tabs to find the checkbox or typing "man vi".
You can't see how it's unreasonable and unrealistic for regular users to remember the relevant switches for every option of every app they use? Or that it's silly to think they should be happy to read a man page each time they forget one? You don't see how having the relevant options present and labelled and documented up-front is beneficial?
Don't you think it's a little unreasonable for people to have to memorize which of million or so menu/window/tab paths (do the math sometime) gets them to the thing they want to access with limited or no documentation rather than simple typing "man whatever" to find the switch they forgot.
a GUI tool often isn't the quick and easiest method of doing things. At least with Linux I have the option of either way 90% of the time. Oh, and the other 10% are mostly things you can't even do on Windows at all.
Saying there is graphical options to do things as well doesn't always mean it is easier. For example I have openSuse and I had to change network settings. Did I use the icon in the status bar? The network settings in the control center? The Hardware settings in the control center? The network settings in YaST? Or the command line?
No shit sherlock. A great many things in Windows would be much easier and more efficient if you didn't have to dig through a maze of poorly documented menus, windows and tabs to do even the simplest of tasks.
Linux users are technophiles who still cannot accomplish everything without having to resort to a command line. This means that linux ain't ready for the Windoze using masses.
Did you ever think that people might be using the command line because in many cases it's a faster better way to accomplish the task? I go nuts every time I work on a Windows box and have to dig through layer upon layer of menus to accomplish even simple tasks. Most things on modern Linux distros can be done through GUI tools but I most often use the command line because it's quicker and easier. I only wish I had that option when fighting menu hell on Windows machines. What's even worse is going from Windows XP to 2000 and trying to remember what menu path takes you to the magic room your trying to get to. It's like one of those old Infocom games.
"Your on a blue lit desktop. There is a start button and a bunch of silly meaningless pictures"
"Click start"
"You are presented with 10 menu options with confusing names"
"Click menu option 1"
"You are presented with 20 more menu options with confusing names"
It always amazes me when people talk about how simple Windows is. I can move from Solaris 7 to OpenSuse 10.2 and at most have to check the man pages on a few commands for switches or the location of a file. Most things are consistent and have been for decades. The things that aren't have easy to access documentation to tell you how they are different. It usually takes less then a minute. Going from Windows 2000 to XP means trying to remember all the mebu magic paths with little or no documentation of any kind to help you. I hate to think of the pain the first time I have to deal with a Vista box. Fortunately most companies seem to be avoiding it so far.
And what is even funnier is whenever you come across a difficult task on Windows like the basic security of not running as admin the excuse the Windows bigots use is "well if they're to stupid to figure it out they shouldn't be using a computer". While anything remotely complicated on a Linux computer means Linux isn't ready for prime time. That's BS. Linux is far more ready for prime time if people were more willing to get over there prejudice for the piece of crap unsecure mess called Windows.
Someone who successfully commits rape on second life might then decide to try it for real. Should the virtual rape be investigated to head off a real one?
Yeah and people who make movies about rape also might try it for real too so they should be locked up too. And people who write stories about rape should be locked up too. And people who post messages about rape on the internets too...Hold on there's someone knocking on my door.
Saying that you can solve virtual rape by logging off is just the updated digital version of a former Tx gubernatorial candidate's suggestion that you should just lay back and enjoy it. Your avatar is your creation and possession, and to have it unwillingly misused is not always acceptable.
So your saying if someone rapes my car it's the same thing as them raping me? Yeah, that seems about right. Aside from a little cleaning up someone raping my car causes no damage to anyone or anything (Hmmm... except maybe the rapist). People need to get over this self centered idea that they have an entitlement to never be offended by anyone ever. No you don't have a right not to be offended. If Howard Stern or Imus offends you don't listen. If enough people stop listening they lose their platform. Instead the morans listen more so they can get their righteous indignation up. If someone offends you in a MMORG report them and log off. The people trying to make money off the game will fix it if it causes enough people to log off. And the idea that you don't want to log off because you make money in the game is idiotic. Just because you're making money off someone else's business doesn't give you the right to control that business. If Second Life wants to turn their game into an online rape fest that's entirely up to them. If you don't like it stop playing. It's idiotic to expect them to be arrested for it. That's like buying a Big Mac and then expecting the cook to be arrested because he raped your taste buds.
It is kind of like if you are a mass murderer and go to prison, and your cell mate asks you to kill someone in a cell down the hall. Shouldn't be that offended that he asked, should you?
It's one thing when you do something illegal that is only known to you on a level that only affects you personally. It's quite another thing when your doing it on a large scale and can have major affects on many other people. Using your murder analogy it should be you were in prison for killing yourself and getting offended when the guard tells you to become a mass murderer.
Actually, certain rights are temporarily suspended, not lost, and that has nothing to do with the point I was making.
You're arguing semantics but those rights are lost for as long as you're in the military and for essential reasons. For many people they are lost forever as far as they are concerned.
If you don't agree that censoring military personal for political gain is wrong, then you fundamentally do not agree with freedom of expression as a basic human right, or you think political gain is more important than it. Either way, I think you're an idiot.
If you think censorship of military personal is for political gain you need to go reread all those history books you claim to have read. Intelligence is the most critical aspect determining the success of any military operation. That's the primary reason. Secondarily military personal should not be involved in politics period. That's a key factor in maintaining any freedoms in a society. Military governments are rarely pretty. So yes I do think military personal should be politically censored and if you had really read all those history books you claim to have read you should see the reason why. Do you know where the phrase "crossing the Rubicon" came from. That's an example of military personal getting involved in politics (I'll give you it's an extreme example) and it lead to the destruction of one of the most successfully functioning republics. They can go play those games after they get out of the military.
Yes you can. You can also be ordered to slowly peel the skin of of living babies. That isn't the point. The point is is it ethical for the military to order you to do that, only for the political gain of civilian politicians?
What kind of history books do you read? Ever read a rather popular little book by Clausewitz? All military actions are by definition for political gain. The idea in a functioning democracy is to make sure it's the elected politicians determining what military actions are taken for political gain and not the military personal. So again yes I do think that military personal should be censored from making political statements of any kind.
You see what people like you don't understand is that there are already regulations to prohibit releasing anything that could constitute a security risk,
Yes but these rules clarify those rules with respect to modern technology. They are clearly applying the old rules that any written or verbal communications are subject to censorship are applicable to modern electronic communications also.
and even were that not the case, there are worse things than a security risk.
Yeah, like a military that's involved in governmental politics.
Guess what, the US would be more secure if we banned all non-government controlled media, but then we've kind of already defeated ourselves haven't we?
And it would be gone quickly if guys who commanded thousands of tanks and planes were involved in the political process.
Can we agree that creating military rules and using them to discourage military personal from providing unclassified information to other Americans and to discourage them from espousing political opinions that are are disliked by the incumbent political party is unethical, detrimental to the US, and thoroughly opposed to the American ideal of free speech?
This regulation is obviously unenforcable in general. The military does not have the manpower to police every communication by every military officer and family member. Why then, would such a rule be created? The only plausible explanation I have is so that they have a way to bust anyone who says something they don't like as a way of punishing people for saying any arbitrary thing they don't like and as a way to discourage members of the military from speaking their minds. Do you have a better explanation?
No. But I think we can all agree that you are completely clueless about anything related to the military, military history, including even the most basic concept of what the military does and how it does it. When you join the service you lose all your rights as a citizen and all the protections of the Constitution or any other civilian government protections that may apply to normal people. This is an absolute requirement in any military because absolute discipline is a requirement for the military to function. This includes losing your right to life. You can be ordered to do something suicidal and shot if you don't do it. Military discipline is the only rule that applies and if someone orders you to do something suicidal without good reason they can be shot.
You see, what people like you don't understand is that even the seemingly most innocent comment can compromise operational security. Making public knowledge of where you ate lunch or what time you went to bed can get people killed under the right circumstances. When asymmetric warfare is involved this is even more the case. Add to that the fact your average grunt isn't going to have a clue which minor bits of information may compromise something critical and you have a very good reason for rules like this and a much better explanation than the one in your dream world above.
Will they be going after military family members? Exceptionally unlikely. I'd be more concerned with house burglary... or, hell, lightning strike starting a fire.
I think the concern would be more along the lines of compromising them in some form to use as an intelligence source rather than outright violence against them. Also in a situation involving asymmetric warfare OPSEC is far more critical. Even the seemingly most innocent information can be used to good effect. Something like "we had an unbelievable lunch at a cafe called 'Amhads'" provides information on where to send the next suicide bomber.
Your seriously delusional if you think anything about Windows is free.
It's a hodgepodge of these widgets and those widgets, this license and that license (really meaning, these liabilities and those liabilities.)
So your argument is you have so many choices you can't decide? Just pick one and run with it. Pick one with a license (and liability) you can live with. Is that so difficult. And in most cases you can ship the widget library with your application so as to ensure it's there. Usually for free. You find windows easier because it restricts you to only a limited set of tools and capabilities rather than having a huge set of tools and capabilities. This makes absolutely no sense to me.
Somehow I can't image that Verizon really wanted to cause Vonage to immediately go out of business
Are you kidding? Verizon's request was for an injunction shutting down Vonage's VoIP services altogether immediately until the appeals were complete. The "no new customers" was a compromise by the judge.
Because there is money in doing so. It's likely more profitable for Verizon to obtain royalties from Vonage then to have them take over their business.
Hmmm... Lets see here. Verizon can license this to Vonage and receive a small fraction of what Vonage is charging for each phone line or they can shut down Vonage and force everyone to get their phone lines for which they charge twice what Vonage does and keep all the profits.
It is more profitable for them to charge large licensing fees to Vonage then to destroy them.
Yeah it's more profitable for them to get a small licensing fee from a company that is destroying there entire business model.
We are still in the deliberation stage. Verizon and Vonage can still reach an agreement that is mutually beneficial
"Mutually beneficial" when one companies business is basically destroying the others? My understanding is the Verizon has flat out refused to license the patents to Vonage.
Very true, but it gives them time to try and get around the patents in question.
They can't work around them. The patents basically cover converting an IP address to a phone number and visa versa. It's impossible to connect VoIP to the phone network without doing this. Unless or until the patents are determined to be invalid Verizon owns VoIP and can shut down any company that ties VoIP to the phone network.
Will a jury made of mostly non-programmers be able to understand the subject matter?
No, a jury made of exclusively non-programmers. I'm sure they find a way to ensure no programmers are on the jury. They want a jury trial specifically because they don't want the people determining the outcome to understand the subject. A judge would have a reasonable chance of understanding and recognizing the ridiculousness of the patent and thus telling them to take a hike. A jury won't understand a thing from the technology standpoint and they can win the case with an emotional argument based on big old Microsoft stealing the poor little guys technology and by doing so causing poor little guys company to fail. They most assuredly don't want the case determined by anyone who can understand the technological details.
While I am most certainly not saying that someone who doesn't report a lost or stolen credit deserves to be accused of being a pedophile, credit card companies do hold people responsible to cancel a card the moment it becomes lost or stolen and to report any purchases that are out of the ordinary or suspicious.
What planet are you from? It certainly ain't earth. TJ Max lost something like 40 million credit card numbers. There's not even any requirement for a company to tell you they've given away your credit card info (or SSN, DOB...) to anyone. So you're saying everyone should somehow automatically know TJ Max gave away their credit card info. Yeah, that makes sense.
Are you saying it was the courts (and not the USPTO) that decided to extend patent coverage to business process, etc.? AFAIK, that's not the case. The courts may have upheld a USPTO decision, but it was almost certainly the USPTO's call in the first place.
Good point. I was thinking more along the lines that the Patent office change what could be patented pretty much arbitrarily without any changes by the legislator and the courts have so far supported these changes.
Software is no more mathematics than your car's engine is.
No software is math pure and simple. A processor does math with numbers, moves them around to different places and transmits the numbers to peripheral devices. It does nothing more so it can be nothing but math. A program just tells it what math to perform and which numbers go where. Higher level languages simply change the symbolic representation of the math to present it in a more human understandable format. There's nothing in a car engine that does math that makes stuff blow up so it can run (Hmmm...there's a processor now but it just replaces what use to be mechanical controls and certainly isn't essential to the primary function).
To use tactics of encirclement, you need to be at least as mobile as your enemy and preferably more so.
Basically, the kind of gear a soldier carries affects the kind of small unit tactics that can be used, and in this situation mobility is the most important thing.
No you need better intelligence than your enemy. Speed is useless without good information on where and what the enemy is doing. I would say speed gives you much greater flexibility in defeating enemy initiatives but intelligence is far more important to encirclement tactics or any other tactical maneuver for that matter. You can encircle an enemy that is faster than you if your intelligence is significantly better than the enemy's. But no matter how much faster you are than the enemy without better intelligence it's practically impossible to encircle an enemy. That's is exactly what this system is designed to address. The problem is most grunts don't think much in terms of tactics at the individual level.
I would like to see this 500 yard shot on a man sized target especially with a one shot kill as you mention
I've hit 300 meter prone targets regularly so that's 330 yards at a target that's like a guy laying down. Did some sniper training once (not official sniper school but just some training at Grafenwoehr for us normal grunts). We hit 500 meter targets but we were using a variety of weapons and I can't remember if I hit it with the M16. "One shot one kill" is the motto of sniper school.
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Technically you're right. Practically you're wrong. With the current court system patent cases are heard by special courts made up entirely of patent attorneys whose primary interest appears to be expanding the patent system so as to make it a boom town for patent lawyers getting rich. To invalidate a patent on prior art the patent claims are interpreted extremely narrowly. To be in violation of the patent the patent claims are interpreted very broadly. Obviousness is not even considered. With the patent office basically rubber stamping approval of patent applications a lot a idiotic patents are being approved. Add to that patent cases are all heard on the basis that since the patents were granted they must be considered valid by the courts until proven otherwise and it becomes very expensive to fight a patent violation claim against you even for blatantly invalid patents. The RIM case is a perfect example. No matter how bad the RIM screwed up the case the fact that the patent office made a preliminary review determination that the patents were invalid the court should have stayed the case without any for of injunction until the final determination of the validity of the patents by the patent office. Instead NTP made well over half a billion dollars on invalid patents.
The point I'm making is that the US patent system is based on patent lawyers as judges making sure their fellow patent lawyers get rich and nothing else. The best way out is to impose severe penalties on anyone who files for a patent that is latter determined to be invalid and censor and impose sanctions on any lawyers who were involved in the filing or enforcement. This will put the burden of determining the validity of a patent on the person applying for the patent rather than an overworked patent clerk working on a quota system. Also the person applying for the patent is likely to have a far greater knowledge of the field the patent applies to than a patent clerk.
And the press has reported that they have gotten a fair number of OSS customers to sign licensing agreements. One theory is they started this again because the rate of those license agreements slowed down. If Microsoft establishes enough of a precedent with these license agreements they essentially control OSS (in the US) through the ability to not license the patents or at least make the license agreements cost more than going with Microsoft products. And the best part is with todays patent system in the US the patents don't even have to be valid. Just ask RIM. All Microsoft has to do is make the initial cost of the license agreement cost less than fighting it. Once they have a company on the hook there is very little chance of them successfully fighting so Microsoft can jack up the prices to the point that using OSS is cost prohibitive. Or even outright refuse to renew the patent licenses.
SCO was a major frontal attack on OSS that cost Microsoft mere pocket change of $40,000,000. It was a long shot and it probably didn't go as well as they hoped so they've switched from the frontal attack to infiltration tactics and guerrilla warfare. This could easily destroy the OSS industry in the US and in the process pretty much trash the entire technology industry there also. If you don't think so consider the fact that any tech company that becomes successful enough to show up on the radar immediately gets attacked and ends up spending more on the resource sinkhole of lawyers than they spend on R&D for improving their products. Given that in the tech industry things become obsolete in a matter of months Europe, India, Russia and China will be flying past them before the first hearings on the lawsuits start.
Yeah, right... Tell that one to RIM or Vonage for just 2 quick ones off the top of my head. I could go through patents and find thousands of down right idiotic patents that have been licensed by people simple because it was cheaper than fighting. But I won't because it would mean triple damages for willful infringement if I actually researched patents. Starting a companying without a huge warchest to fight patent litigation is like entering a minefield with in your underwear with a fork. Yeah, the system is real livable.
At best that's an arguable premise at best. I have something like 200 channels to pick from and rarely have I found something that entertains me.
This is why I'm all for corporal punishment. Pain is nature's way of telling you you're doing something wrong. Let's use nature's tools.
Are you kidding? Of course Microsoft owns patents that cover things in Linux. The way the patent office is rubber stamping patent applications as fast as they can replace their ink pads and the fact that Microsoft files for thousands of patents yearly means it's likely Microsoft has a patent that would cover any non-trivial software out there (and probably a lot of trivial software). Only the MAD effect and the fact that Microsoft has enemies that have more patents than they do keeps them from pushing the button. I mean for FSM's sake, they issued a patent on double linked lists. What makes you think Microsoft hasn't slipped through multiple patents that cover trivial crap that's used in Linux?
How does that make my argument fallacious? It just proves my point precisely. A more complex machine means even more confusing manuals, meaning all the more reason not be expected to memorise the means to correctly operate it without having to rely on those manuals.
It's fallacious because you're saying it should be as easy to operate a Computer as it is a drill. I've never seen a more than trivial app where the menus, windows and tabs intuitively led you to what you were looking for and the more complex the app the more confusing and arbitrary the menus, windows and tab are going to be. It's easier to find an arcane feature by typing in "/" in a man page than to search through menus to fine where it's hidden or looking through a 15 pound book and the man page is there whenever I need it.
Reference information shouldn't be necessary. It can be useful though. As I stated quite clearly, the help file is there as a backup if you don't understand the label or the context-sensitive tooltip or any other text that may be associated with it in the GUI itself. You talk about finding controls and layers of menus as if it's a maze. Most decent apps will provide any option within three menus/dialogs. Menus and dialogs which are clearly labeled. Contrast this with "man vi". OK, now I'm looking at 428 pages of prose, listing approximately 60 switches, of which less than half have long options meaning I have to read the text associated with each of those to see if it does what I want. Yeah, that's better...
You're arguing in circles. You say you shouldn't need manuals and you shouldn't need to memorize but somehow all knowledge of how to use and configure an app should just magically appear in your head. If you're saying someone who has never used a computer before is going to be able to sit down and "intuitively" figure out how to use a menu very well know what all the words in a menu mean I call bullshit. If Windows is so intuitive why are there shelves and shelves of Windows books in every technical book store. You find the GUI in Word easy because you've been using it for a long time. For someone who never used the app it's a maze of twisty passages. It's "intuitive" to you because you've had years of training to learn that "intuition". Vi is "intuitive" to me for the same reason. Neither is more "intuitive" to someone who has never used a computer before (well I'll give some on vi but it's a bad example). And I've encountered many more GUIs that were outright obtuse than I have man pages that were obtuse.
A GUI tool is only slower than a CLI app if you already know your way around the CLI app and remember all relevant switches. Otherwise you've got a lot of reading to do. Even if you do know your way around your CLI it's no guarantee since, as I mentioned previously, CLI apps are typically limited by their interfaces to focusing on a single operation or subtask meaning you'll often need several of them to perform a single practical task.
Man you've just blown all your credibility by claiming that a CLI is more limited than a GUI interface. The only place this holds true is in the Windows world where the reason they don't give you a usable CLI is so they can limit what you're able to do. A CLI is only slower if you have no idea how to use the command and you've memorized the way through the twisted maze of menus, windows and tabs to find what you want to do. If you have to do something more than three time in a month the CLI is always faster because you'll remember and just have to simple type some stuff and hit return. With a GUI you're fishing and clicking with the mouse before you get to where you can type in the information. Instead of memorizing commands you've memorized what all those menu words mean.
As for the Linux vs. Windows stuff, that has no relevance to what I or the GP's were discussing. This isn't about Linux vs. Windows, it's about GUIs being the more practical means of interface for
So I guess knowledge just magically jumps into your head. Must be nice. I know whether it's a GUI tool or the command line I have to research how to configure and do things on my computers. I find a set of clear concise documented tools much easier to use than a maze of undocumented menus, windows and tabs.
No regular person wants to read a manual either. How would you feel if your power drill disassembled itself each month and you had to read a manual of randomly arrowed diagrams and Korean instructions, would you still appreciate "researching tools while using them"? Because that's what man pages are to the common computer user: an absolute mess of technical terms and presumed prior knowledge that can only be half understood unless you're willing to take your computer use up from casual user to demi-expert. Most users aren't willing to do that, and there's absolutely no reason they should.When's the last time you used your drill for to track your expenses or edit a picture or do your taxes or research refrigerators? You know what? I think a computer just might be a just little more complex than a drill. Kind of makes your comparison a little fallacious.
No useful reference information in MS Word? I haven't used it in a long time but still I find that very hard to believe. Even if by some chance MS Word doesn't provide that info almost any and every other half-decent GUI app does, and in far more intuitive ways than any CLI app I've seen. For one thing the nature of the options is implictly given by the type of control they use (ie. checkbox, editbox, choice dropdown, etc.), the controls are invariably labelled of course, they'll also typically have a context-sensitive help in the dialog itself (in Windows this would be accessible from the "?" button, in GNOME it's just a mouse-over). If that doesn't give you enough information there's always a help file which gives full documentation.Reference information? I thought you were the one who didn't feel that kind of thing should be necessary? It's not a matter of using the control. It's a matter of finding the control for what you're trying to change. It's the difference between digging through layer upon layer of menus, windows and tabs to find the checkbox or typing "man vi".
You can't see how it's unreasonable and unrealistic for regular users to remember the relevant switches for every option of every app they use? Or that it's silly to think they should be happy to read a man page each time they forget one? You don't see how having the relevant options present and labelled and documented up-front is beneficial?Don't you think it's a little unreasonable for people to have to memorize which of million or so menu/window/tab paths (do the math sometime) gets them to the thing they want to access with limited or no documentation rather than simple typing "man whatever" to find the switch they forgot.
a GUI tool often isn't the quick and easiest method of doing things. At least with Linux I have the option of either way 90% of the time. Oh, and the other 10% are mostly things you can't even do on Windows at all.
No shit sherlock. A great many things in Windows would be much easier and more efficient if you didn't have to dig through a maze of poorly documented menus, windows and tabs to do even the simplest of tasks.
Did you ever think that people might be using the command line because in many cases it's a faster better way to accomplish the task? I go nuts every time I work on a Windows box and have to dig through layer upon layer of menus to accomplish even simple tasks. Most things on modern Linux distros can be done through GUI tools but I most often use the command line because it's quicker and easier. I only wish I had that option when fighting menu hell on Windows machines. What's even worse is going from Windows XP to 2000 and trying to remember what menu path takes you to the magic room your trying to get to. It's like one of those old Infocom games.
"Your on a blue lit desktop. There is a start button and a bunch of silly meaningless pictures"
"Click start"
"You are presented with 10 menu options with confusing names"
"Click menu option 1"
"You are presented with 20 more menu options with confusing names"
It always amazes me when people talk about how simple Windows is. I can move from Solaris 7 to OpenSuse 10.2 and at most have to check the man pages on a few commands for switches or the location of a file. Most things are consistent and have been for decades. The things that aren't have easy to access documentation to tell you how they are different. It usually takes less then a minute. Going from Windows 2000 to XP means trying to remember all the mebu magic paths with little or no documentation of any kind to help you. I hate to think of the pain the first time I have to deal with a Vista box. Fortunately most companies seem to be avoiding it so far.
And what is even funnier is whenever you come across a difficult task on Windows like the basic security of not running as admin the excuse the Windows bigots use is "well if they're to stupid to figure it out they shouldn't be using a computer". While anything remotely complicated on a Linux computer means Linux isn't ready for prime time. That's BS. Linux is far more ready for prime time if people were more willing to get over there prejudice for the piece of crap unsecure mess called Windows.
Yeah and people who make movies about rape also might try it for real too so they should be locked up too. And people who write stories about rape should be locked up too. And people who post messages about rape on the internets too...Hold on there's someone knocking on my door.
So your saying if someone rapes my car it's the same thing as them raping me? Yeah, that seems about right. Aside from a little cleaning up someone raping my car causes no damage to anyone or anything (Hmmm... except maybe the rapist). People need to get over this self centered idea that they have an entitlement to never be offended by anyone ever. No you don't have a right not to be offended. If Howard Stern or Imus offends you don't listen. If enough people stop listening they lose their platform. Instead the morans listen more so they can get their righteous indignation up. If someone offends you in a MMORG report them and log off. The people trying to make money off the game will fix it if it causes enough people to log off. And the idea that you don't want to log off because you make money in the game is idiotic. Just because you're making money off someone else's business doesn't give you the right to control that business. If Second Life wants to turn their game into an online rape fest that's entirely up to them. If you don't like it stop playing. It's idiotic to expect them to be arrested for it. That's like buying a Big Mac and then expecting the cook to be arrested because he raped your taste buds.
It's one thing when you do something illegal that is only known to you on a level that only affects you personally. It's quite another thing when your doing it on a large scale and can have major affects on many other people. Using your murder analogy it should be you were in prison for killing yourself and getting offended when the guard tells you to become a mass murderer.
You're arguing semantics but those rights are lost for as long as you're in the military and for essential reasons. For many people they are lost forever as far as they are concerned.
If you don't agree that censoring military personal for political gain is wrong, then you fundamentally do not agree with freedom of expression as a basic human right, or you think political gain is more important than it. Either way, I think you're an idiot.If you think censorship of military personal is for political gain you need to go reread all those history books you claim to have read. Intelligence is the most critical aspect determining the success of any military operation. That's the primary reason. Secondarily military personal should not be involved in politics period. That's a key factor in maintaining any freedoms in a society. Military governments are rarely pretty. So yes I do think military personal should be politically censored and if you had really read all those history books you claim to have read you should see the reason why. Do you know where the phrase "crossing the Rubicon" came from. That's an example of military personal getting involved in politics (I'll give you it's an extreme example) and it lead to the destruction of one of the most successfully functioning republics. They can go play those games after they get out of the military.
Yes you can. You can also be ordered to slowly peel the skin of of living babies. That isn't the point. The point is is it ethical for the military to order you to do that, only for the political gain of civilian politicians?What kind of history books do you read? Ever read a rather popular little book by Clausewitz? All military actions are by definition for political gain. The idea in a functioning democracy is to make sure it's the elected politicians determining what military actions are taken for political gain and not the military personal. So again yes I do think that military personal should be censored from making political statements of any kind.
You see what people like you don't understand is that there are already regulations to prohibit releasing anything that could constitute a security risk,Yes but these rules clarify those rules with respect to modern technology. They are clearly applying the old rules that any written or verbal communications are subject to censorship are applicable to modern electronic communications also.
and even were that not the case, there are worse things than a security risk.Yeah, like a military that's involved in governmental politics.
Guess what, the US would be more secure if we banned all non-government controlled media, but then we've kind of already defeated ourselves haven't we?And it would be gone quickly if guys who commanded thousands of tanks and planes were involved in the political process.
No. But I think we can all agree that you are completely clueless about anything related to the military, military history, including even the most basic concept of what the military does and how it does it. When you join the service you lose all your rights as a citizen and all the protections of the Constitution or any other civilian government protections that may apply to normal people. This is an absolute requirement in any military because absolute discipline is a requirement for the military to function. This includes losing your right to life. You can be ordered to do something suicidal and shot if you don't do it. Military discipline is the only rule that applies and if someone orders you to do something suicidal without good reason they can be shot.
You see, what people like you don't understand is that even the seemingly most innocent comment can compromise operational security. Making public knowledge of where you ate lunch or what time you went to bed can get people killed under the right circumstances. When asymmetric warfare is involved this is even more the case. Add to that the fact your average grunt isn't going to have a clue which minor bits of information may compromise something critical and you have a very good reason for rules like this and a much better explanation than the one in your dream world above.
I think the concern would be more along the lines of compromising them in some form to use as an intelligence source rather than outright violence against them. Also in a situation involving asymmetric warfare OPSEC is far more critical. Even the seemingly most innocent information can be used to good effect. Something like "we had an unbelievable lunch at a cafe called 'Amhads'" provides information on where to send the next suicide bomber.
Your seriously delusional if you think anything about Windows is free.
It's a hodgepodge of these widgets and those widgets, this license and that license (really meaning, these liabilities and those liabilities.)So your argument is you have so many choices you can't decide? Just pick one and run with it. Pick one with a license (and liability) you can live with. Is that so difficult. And in most cases you can ship the widget library with your application so as to ensure it's there. Usually for free. You find windows easier because it restricts you to only a limited set of tools and capabilities rather than having a huge set of tools and capabilities. This makes absolutely no sense to me.
Are you kidding? Verizon's request was for an injunction shutting down Vonage's VoIP services altogether immediately until the appeals were complete. The "no new customers" was a compromise by the judge.
Hmmm... Lets see here. Verizon can license this to Vonage and receive a small fraction of what Vonage is charging for each phone line or they can shut down Vonage and force everyone to get their phone lines for which they charge twice what Vonage does and keep all the profits.
It is more profitable for them to charge large licensing fees to Vonage then to destroy them.Yeah it's more profitable for them to get a small licensing fee from a company that is destroying there entire business model.
We are still in the deliberation stage. Verizon and Vonage can still reach an agreement that is mutually beneficial"Mutually beneficial" when one companies business is basically destroying the others? My understanding is the Verizon has flat out refused to license the patents to Vonage.
They can't work around them. The patents basically cover converting an IP address to a phone number and visa versa. It's impossible to connect VoIP to the phone network without doing this. Unless or until the patents are determined to be invalid Verizon owns VoIP and can shut down any company that ties VoIP to the phone network.
No, a jury made of exclusively non-programmers. I'm sure they find a way to ensure no programmers are on the jury. They want a jury trial specifically because they don't want the people determining the outcome to understand the subject. A judge would have a reasonable chance of understanding and recognizing the ridiculousness of the patent and thus telling them to take a hike. A jury won't understand a thing from the technology standpoint and they can win the case with an emotional argument based on big old Microsoft stealing the poor little guys technology and by doing so causing poor little guys company to fail. They most assuredly don't want the case determined by anyone who can understand the technological details.
What planet are you from? It certainly ain't earth. TJ Max lost something like 40 million credit card numbers. There's not even any requirement for a company to tell you they've given away your credit card info (or SSN, DOB...) to anyone. So you're saying everyone should somehow automatically know TJ Max gave away their credit card info. Yeah, that makes sense.
Good point. I was thinking more along the lines that the Patent office change what could be patented pretty much arbitrarily without any changes by the legislator and the courts have so far supported these changes.
Software is no more mathematics than your car's engine is.No software is math pure and simple. A processor does math with numbers, moves them around to different places and transmits the numbers to peripheral devices. It does nothing more so it can be nothing but math. A program just tells it what math to perform and which numbers go where. Higher level languages simply change the symbolic representation of the math to present it in a more human understandable format. There's nothing in a car engine that does math that makes stuff blow up so it can run (Hmmm...there's a processor now but it just replaces what use to be mechanical controls and certainly isn't essential to the primary function).
No you need better intelligence than your enemy. Speed is useless without good information on where and what the enemy is doing. I would say speed gives you much greater flexibility in defeating enemy initiatives but intelligence is far more important to encirclement tactics or any other tactical maneuver for that matter. You can encircle an enemy that is faster than you if your intelligence is significantly better than the enemy's. But no matter how much faster you are than the enemy without better intelligence it's practically impossible to encircle an enemy. That's is exactly what this system is designed to address. The problem is most grunts don't think much in terms of tactics at the individual level.
I've hit 300 meter prone targets regularly so that's 330 yards at a target that's like a guy laying down. Did some sniper training once (not official sniper school but just some training at Grafenwoehr for us normal grunts). We hit 500 meter targets but we were using a variety of weapons and I can't remember if I hit it with the M16. "One shot one kill" is the motto of sniper school.