Maybe indirectly, through the IRS. But I don't think USPTO gets paid more to issue a patent to Microsoft or IBM than they do to issue one to your or me.
There is name recognition, though. If a high-profile company applies for a patent, maybe the system gives it a little easier ride, examines it a little less closely, than if "Joe Crackpot, ace inventor" is on the application.
The real problem is having business process patents and software patents in the first place. These things should not be patentable.
Restraint of trade by a monopoly is illegal, but if they get a business practice patent the government restrains trade for them. I don't get it.
If I leave too much in the Silver, everyone will buy that, and the Gold sales will suffer.
That's a completely different story from software that just won't run under certain conditions - XP Starter's value depends on things other than its purchase price.
You might try using an "unlock code". Free feature set needs no code, silver feature set requires a silver unlock code, gold requires gold code. That way you always ship the same binary.
At the risk of sounding new here, I am amazed at the mindset. Whatever happened to making the best product you can and trying to sell as much of it as you can? The idea at Microsoft appears to be to sell your product as much as you can by making it perform poorly compared to itself. Or something like that.
Imagine being the engineers tasked with writing the feature that disables the OS on "advanced" CPUs. What pride they must have in their work.
Then consider the conversation between the marketing guru and his twelve-year-old son. "So, Dad, what did you do at work today?". What pride they must have in their work.
Then consider the poor sap who buys XP Starter Edition and finds out that it won't start. He can't return it, having opened it. All he can do is put it on EBay and hope he doesn't get sued.
... (yahoo mail, hotmail, and gmail) will be foolish to make this information public: the spam filtering is one thing that makes a yahoo/gmail account more attractive...
Don't reject that idea so quickly, as I think you're on to something. The protocol would encapsulate the information that "userx@foo.com marked this message as spam". What the email provider does with that information is something else.
Not only that, but Google and Yahoo! could team up against Hotmail, or AOL, or whoever. Maybe they all could realize that it's in everyone's interest to stop spam and start cooperating.
Actually, I think we should find a way to attach the same stigma to spam customers that we do to the spammers. Why do spam customers not have to go to jail? They're as much the problem as the spammers.
I can see something like having all the spam customers' names published online, so you google for "spam" and "lheal" and up pops my list of purchases. The other spammers then get a very clean list of people to spam. Over time, the net would be segregated into those who like spam and those who don't.
How is naming an object orbiting Saturn a moon a good use of your tax dollars?
On the other hand, your State Board of Education wants you to really THINK about where you came from, and not simply accept the implausible idea that God did it in six days nor the unlikely explanation that it just happened, and kept on just happening, for billions of years. They want you to question your assumptions, and to know what you're taking on faith.
You choose to put your faith in Isaac Asimov. Fine - you get the answer to the basic questions of life from a science fiction writer. You might be interested in the writings of that sage, L. Ron Hubbard, who took the next step and invented his own religion (Scientology).
Whether OO.o is built using a Free language or just a free language is not important to me. The source code of the suite (in the [Ff]ree language) is available.
Having the source is all I really care about. Would it be better if Sun GPLd Java? Maybe. Would it be better if OO.o were developed using only Free tools? Maybe.
Would any of that change my ability, in the real world, to use Open Office instead of MS Office? Probably not.
Are you sure? The Republican leadership (at least in Congress) continues to move farther right
It's a little bit of tail-chasing. They want someone who looks more centrist to the Left, while also looking rightist to the Right. Really very few politicians actually care about anything in particular, though most of them care a great deal about things generally.
It's all about appearances and compromising with "the devil" to acquire and wield power. You need power to accomplish your goals. The trouble is, many of them acquire the power and forget what they wanted to accomplish with it.
My dad always said, "The best used car's your own."
I've got a '97 Eagle Vision that's paid for. Right now it doesn't owe me anything, since it's got 170,000 miles on it. I'll run it until it quits in a heap of molten slag somewhere on I-57.
In the mean time, I'm saving my money for the next one.
I used to have a Buick Park Avenue. For a big car, it was great, getting over 30MPG. I now have a smaller Eagle Vision, and get about 30MPG. But it's mine. I don't want to buy something else unless the fuel efficiency would pay for the thing in a year or two. So probably I'll be driving what I have until the wheels fall off.
I commute 65 miles each way, 5 days a week. It's all pancake-flat Illinois interstate. I'm too cheap to buy a new car at new car prices. I'd like to buy a hybrid or all-electric vehicle with:
Mechanical windows and locks
Mechanical ventilation (AC not required)
A heater
LED lighting
Burlap interior
No radio
Cheap, basic transportation. I'll buy my own seat covers, floor mats, stereo, etc.
I hate the inflated prices car makers charge, getting people to buy on credit what they can't really afford to own. I guess I'm the only one, though.
They'll keep improving this stuff until we're all wearing XHDTV contacts or retinal implants or having our video directly beamed to the pleasure center ^W^W visual cortex.
But you are correct that it will be fascinating to see if the technology stabilizes on a flat-screen format.
I'm a 2nd Amendment guy. I believe in the right to keep and bear arms, and I believe that the citizenry should be armed to the teeth and dangerous.
But it's just plain stupid to bring one to work under these circumstances. It says "disgruntled employee about to go postal", and would give the nutty boss an excuse to have you arrested. You don't want that rep at all.
I'd bring a lawyer instead, or at least have a lawyer make a phone call. Asking you to provide a replacement before you receive a final paycheck is defrauding you of your pay.
If it's in your contract that the company owns everything you write while you work for them, then what?
In the case of Linux and other GPLd software to which the code is a putback contribution, they have nothing to say, really. What can they do with the code? Sell it to SCO:-)?
If the company is paying someone to be the main author of a GPLd package, and they insist on "owning" the thing, they'd better also have a no-compete clause. If not, then the author can quit, use a publicly available snapshot, and start doing whatever it was they didn't want him to do.
Generally a company that open sources a package or contributes to an open sourced package is going to play nice. It's in their interest to have a good rep in the community.
That way, when your machine gets bogged down by using all of its disk space for IE cache, all its bandwidth to send malware spam, and all its processor power on "security" features, you'll be forced to upgrade to Linux.
Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning has been granted a patent on the transfer of an object from one person to another (with or without a gap in time during which the object is in the possession of neither person).
Cyclist Lance Armstrong has been granted three (3) patents:
Transportation of a human being via self-propelled vehicle with multiple circular suspension devices
Winning the Tour de France
Raising money by selling inexpensive but unique items of adornment
Mohatma Gandhi has been granted a patent for thwarting the plans of far-flung empires and changing the course of history by doing nothing
The editors of Slashdot have been granted a patent on the use of web site to disseminate the same information several times a week
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe indirectly, through the IRS. But I don't think USPTO gets paid more to issue a patent to Microsoft or IBM than they do to issue one to your or me.
There is name recognition, though. If a high-profile company applies for a patent, maybe the system gives it a little easier ride, examines it a little less closely, than if "Joe Crackpot, ace inventor" is on the application.
The real problem is having business process patents and software patents in the first place. These things should not be patentable.
Restraint of trade by a monopoly is illegal, but if they get a business practice patent the government restrains trade for them. I don't get it.
Once again, this repeated dupe was already talked about previously before.
That's a completely different story from software that just won't run under certain conditions - XP Starter's value depends on things other than its purchase price.
You might try using an "unlock code". Free feature set needs no code, silver feature set requires a silver unlock code, gold requires gold code. That way you always ship the same binary.
At the risk of sounding new here, I am amazed at the mindset. Whatever happened to making the best product you can and trying to sell as much of it as you can? The idea at Microsoft appears to be to sell your product as much as you can by making it perform poorly compared to itself. Or something like that.
Imagine being the engineers tasked with writing the feature that disables the OS on "advanced" CPUs. What pride they must have in their work.
Then consider the conversation between the marketing guru and his twelve-year-old son. "So, Dad, what did you do at work today?". What pride they must have in their work.
Then consider the poor sap who buys XP Starter Edition and finds out that it won't start. He can't return it, having opened it. All he can do is put it on EBay and hope he doesn't get sued.
Don't reject that idea so quickly, as I think you're on to something. The protocol would encapsulate the information that "userx@foo.com marked this message as spam". What the email provider does with that information is something else.
Not only that, but Google and Yahoo! could team up against Hotmail, or AOL, or whoever. Maybe they all could realize that it's in everyone's interest to stop spam and start cooperating.
Right.
In Korea, only old people get P2P spam.
Actually, I think we should find a way to attach the same stigma to spam customers that we do to the spammers. Why do spam customers not have to go to jail? They're as much the problem as the spammers.
I can see something like having all the spam customers' names published online, so you google for "spam" and "lheal" and up pops my list of purchases. The other spammers then get a very clean list of people to spam. Over time, the net would be segregated into those who like spam and those who don't.
Yeah, unworkable idea, but so are all the others.
How is naming an object orbiting Saturn a moon a good use of your tax dollars?
On the other hand, your State Board of Education wants you to really THINK about where you came from, and not simply accept the implausible idea that God did it in six days nor the unlikely explanation that it just happened, and kept on just happening, for billions of years. They want you to question your assumptions, and to know what you're taking on faith.
You choose to put your faith in Isaac Asimov. Fine - you get the answer to the basic questions of life from a science fiction writer. You might be interested in the writings of that sage, L. Ron Hubbard, who took the next step and invented his own religion (Scientology).
>people signing the paperwork
Yes, I suppose without car buyers willing to pay the inflated prices the car makers would eventually lower their prices.
Whether OO.o is built using a Free language or just a free language is not important to me. The source code of the suite (in the [Ff]ree language) is available.
Having the source is all I really care about. Would it be better if Sun GPLd Java? Maybe. Would it be better if OO.o were developed using only Free tools? Maybe.
Would any of that change my ability, in the real world, to use Open Office instead of MS Office? Probably not.
It's a little bit of tail-chasing. They want someone who looks more centrist to the Left, while also looking rightist to the Right. Really very few politicians actually care about anything in particular, though most of them care a great deal about things generally.
It's all about appearances and compromising with "the devil" to acquire and wield power. You need power to accomplish your goals. The trouble is, many of them acquire the power and forget what they wanted to accomplish with it.
That was really quite funny.
Heh heh. Heh.
My dad always said, "The best used car's your own."
I've got a '97 Eagle Vision that's paid for. Right now it doesn't owe me anything, since it's got 170,000 miles on it. I'll run it until it quits in a heap of molten slag somewhere on I-57.
In the mean time, I'm saving my money for the next one.
>V6 with overdrive
I used to have a Buick Park Avenue. For a big car, it was great, getting over 30MPG. I now have a smaller Eagle Vision, and get about 30MPG. But it's mine. I don't want to buy something else unless the fuel efficiency would pay for the thing in a year or two. So probably I'll be driving what I have until the wheels fall off.
Cheap, basic transportation. I'll buy my own seat covers, floor mats, stereo, etc.
I hate the inflated prices car makers charge, getting people to buy on credit what they can't really afford to own. I guess I'm the only one, though.
They'll keep improving this stuff until we're all wearing XHDTV contacts or retinal implants or having our video directly beamed to the pleasure center ^W^W visual cortex.
But you are correct that it will be fascinating to see if the technology stabilizes on a flat-screen format.
Next time, spend less effort writing about your own involvement and more time on that of the authors of the book.
that makes makes me glad I'm not an astronomer.
A Gamma-ray burst lasting less than a second from 2.2 billion light years away, followed by an X-ray afterglow (for a few seconds).
Probably a black hole.
Or maybe the civil war on Zebulon III finally escalated to gamma-ray weapons.
But what funding agency would believe that?
I'm a 2nd Amendment guy. I believe in the right to keep and bear arms, and I believe that the citizenry should be armed to the teeth and dangerous.
But it's just plain stupid to bring one to work under these circumstances. It says "disgruntled employee about to go postal", and would give the nutty boss an excuse to have you arrested. You don't want that rep at all.
I'd bring a lawyer instead, or at least have a lawyer make a phone call. Asking you to provide a replacement before you receive a final paycheck is defrauding you of your pay.
I enjoy dead baby jokes as much as the next sophomore, but what does that have to do with stem cell research?
Answer: obviously, embryonic stem cells are best harvested from dead babies.
That sucks the humor right out of a perfectly good genre.
If it's in your contract that the company owns everything you write while you work for them, then what?
In the case of Linux and other GPLd software to which the code is a putback contribution, they have nothing to say, really. What can they do with the code? Sell it to SCO :-)?
If the company is paying someone to be the main author of a GPLd package, and they insist on "owning" the thing, they'd better also have a no-compete clause. If not, then the author can quit, use a publicly available snapshot, and start doing whatever it was they didn't want him to do.
Generally a company that open sources a package or contributes to an open sourced package is going to play nice. It's in their interest to have a good rep in the community.
Obviously, they want you to use IE.
... let me rethink this one.
That way, when your machine gets bogged down by using all of its disk space for IE cache, all its bandwidth to send malware spam, and all its processor power on "security" features, you'll be forced to upgrade to Linux.
Oh, wait
Imagine a landfill full of these.
... what is that line? Beowulf cluster, that's it.
Oh, that's not right
Imagine a landfill full of Beowulf clusters of these.
Still not the right ring to it.
In Soviet Korea, only old people play Nintendo.
Just another piece of hate mail for the USA.
It's okay. In Communist China, the flame baits you.
... to beat out man's best friend.
They have to teach it to like peanut butter.
-
Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning has been granted a patent on the transfer of an object from one person to another (with or without a gap in time during which the object is in the possession of neither person).
-
Cyclist Lance Armstrong has been granted three (3) patents:
-
Transportation of a human being via self-propelled vehicle with multiple circular suspension devices
-
Winning the Tour de France
-
Raising money by selling inexpensive but unique items of adornment
-
Mohatma Gandhi has been granted a patent for thwarting the plans of far-flung empires and changing the course of history by doing nothing
-
The editors of Slashdot have been granted a patent on the use of web site to disseminate the same information several times a week
(Sorry about that last one).