Hopefully RIM will learn their lesson with these things and maybe quit going after other people for stupid patents. In the latest issues I do side with RIM, but at the same time, they are getting what they deserve. RIM is hardly innocent here, they did this same crap with their stupid mini keyboard on the blackberry vs makers of PDAs with mini keyboards. Sharp Zaurus was doing the mini keyboard thing about 4 years before RIM put the first Blackberry on the market, so to me this is mostly karma coming back to RIM for their nonsense prior.
These kinds of things are always interesting to look at. Currently the cost of most of the more interesting robot systems are rather prohibitive to the poor geek tinkerer, but I expect that will change in the next few years. I recently started an radio controlled tank project and got into looking at some of the the various robot sites around for parts and was surprised to see what kinds of things are available and what has been done even at the garage hobby level. I can't wait until some of the more advanced robot technologies become a little more available to the garage hobbyist, I imagine we will really start to see the creative uses come out then.
On a side note, is that picture a little frightening to anyone else?
I remember my HS physics teacher showing us how to steal CDs with magnets. Now he wasn't trying to teach that skill specifically, so much as use it as an example of electromagnetic properties that would actually get everyones attention. It amuses me that other industries haven't gone through such insane measures, but still refuse to look to themselves for the problem. Compare Gimp and Photoshop, most people will admit that Photoshop is indeed the more advanced product...but go try to buy Photoshop...CD $649, Download $649...So by downloading all you do is increase their profit margin sigificantly...and can anyone say that Photoshop really has $649 worth of extra features over Gimp (outside of a few professional areas)? Same goes for Office...
In theory, a large part of the argument is now about the quality of the copy since it is all digital. VHS degrades over time and music tapes degrade. mp3s and ripped DVDs don't degrade (unless you burn em, but then you still have copies to make new pure quality burns). What really kills me about this crap is that I have worked with high end recording equipment. CDs really aren't the amazing quality you would think. High end analog systems sound amazing, there are just some things that don't make it through the analog->digital conversion well, especially when you are converting down in quality so far for a CD. Even the high end digital systems sound amazingly better, the guy that I worked with on this stuff (I was just doing the electronic maintenance stuff, he was the musician) would usually only be able to fit 3 songs or so on a 5G DVD-RW. There is a ton of lost quality going down to CD.
I imagine it has less to do with politics as many of the conspiracy folks say. I imagine it has more to do with bureaucracy than anything. Almost without exception, government agencies are full of this nonsense. I expect the USPTO would have eventually come to this conclusion anyways. If there was any effect by the political arena, I am sure it had more to do with cleaning up some of the bureaucratic nonsense and getting it through in a timely fashion rather than actually affecting the outcome too much.
Is it just me or is it a little ironic for them to say this. I mean after all, didn't MS, along with most of the other modern computing giants, start as a couple of geek hobbyists in a garage somewhere? The Quest for Cash is getting a little beyond stupid these days. It is one thing to be cutthroat, unethical, and often illegal in business, but more and more the trends are following more along the lines of head in the sand, or pure insanity. At least when they are being cutthroat, unethical, and often illegal, they are a little more stable and predictable.
Uhm...mostly referring to the whole Apple vs MS fiasco... I don't know about cut and paste code theft, but MS has had a tendancy to say "Hey sure we will work with you" and once they get a good look at their new partners stuff "Oh we are sorry, we are gunna go it alone".
And uhm completely legal? I don't quite follow how you can consider what they do completely legal when they have been found, in court, to be doing illegal things. But hey whatever.
That is exactly how patents are supposed to protect the inventor. However...it isn't the inventor that is abusing the system, its the patentor. Patenting something and then never making it, waiting for someone else to put the work and money into making it real, and then filing lawsuits. Patenting something that shouldn't be patented. Betamax vs VHS made sense and to me was decided correctly, however, by the way things are going now, it would be a patent lawsuit just for making a device that could play video on a TV screen regardless of it using any similar technolgy to do it.
Has anyone stopped to consider the impact this will have on the linux world? Average Joe computer user likely doesn't know anything about linux, if they have even heard of it at all. However Average Joe computer user has more than likely heard of Google and uses it quite frequently. If Average Joe is upset with Microsoft and their OS (which many of them are, even if they do just accept it as a fact of life) and hears that those Google folks have a replacement there is a good chance they will check it out. Sure there is a learning curve, but I have seen quite a few people that don't know much about linux or administration happily switch to Ubuntu because it lets them do all the basic things a computer is good for (Surfing, email, word processing, etc) and doesn't turn into a sluggish piece of junk after 6 months. This really could be a big deal if it catches on.
So I am curious now. If people run around and make alot of noise about how to defeat the censorship, won't the Chinese Government demand a fix to close those holes or send Google packing? This sorta puts the whole thing back at square one. Normally I would say full disclosure of security and things like this is a good thing, but in this case it may not be the best. Sort of a Google 0-day situation, this isn't something you want the authorities to know about, and something you don't want fixed for as long as possible.
Honestly...My take is that if they want to go down that road Sharp should sue both of them for infringment. Sharp Zaurus had the minikeyboard thing, email capabilities, etc a few years before the first Blackberry even hit the market. From what I can tell Sharp had the mini keyboard thing almost 4 years before the first Blackberry was on the market. I am also far more impressed with the capabilities of a Sharp Zaurus than I am with a cute email pager thing, but that is a whole nother thing entirely.
Doesn't anyone read the supermarket tabloids?
on
Most Stars Are Single
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· Score: 1, Offtopic
I thought most of the stars were divorced at least once.
Why would they ship a product that is likely to erase their own.dlls? What if it removed IE?!
Re:People are Obese regarless of Income or Geograp
on
Obesity Contagious?
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· Score: 1
from Lazy Boy TV on the "Obesity Epidemic" (Click on the TV to find the video reference)
Grandpa, how did you ever survive?
Well Johnny, it was terrible, there was cheese cake and fried chicken everywhere!
Dennis Leary did a bit on the idea of an obesity virus quite some time ago. I can't remember if its on Lock and Load or No Cure for cancer. There may be some accuracy to the research I suppose, but I am inclined to take the view that this really sounds like a cheap excuse.
*gobble gobble gobble* I can't help it. I am feeding the virus! *gobble* *gobble* *gobble*
I said nothing about whether or not he deserved it, nor was I saying anything about if MS chooses to release their code or not. I also wasn't being terribly serious as you seem to be quite up in arms about these imagined points. I was just sort of making a jab at MS taking over the policing duties after they beat the law themselves. You know..the irony of MS stealing code...and then having their code stolen...Please calm down...
If these aren't drastically compressed in some fashion you are looking at a couple gigs of data per movie. Downloading a file that is 5+ gigs over a P2P application... If you are really hell bent on staying home you could probably order the actual DVD from a website and it show up before your download finished AND still be able to surf the web while you wait instead of having your link crushed under all the other people trying to download 5G worth of data from your computer.
Think about these kids in peer enviroments. The lack of social skills makes them the target for bullying and pranks. They don't tend to pick up on the flags that would indicate that the situation is a trick. It isn't about bullshitting and lying strictly, but in a sense its also about being able to tell when you are being bullshitted and lied to.
Don't you get it. This isn't evolution! This is Intelligent Design in motion! God is punishing the scientific minds that denounce Intelligent Design by giving them autism and making it harder for them to breed! Or maybe this coupled with Intelligent Design means that God has autism.
I am pretty sure I have seen this research in a number of places before. Typically it usually mentions Aspberger's Syndrome. I have also seen this called High Functioning Autism. Bascially people that seem to have alot of traits typical of autism but aren't considered fully autistic themselves.
Alrighty Yall, quit yer bitchin. Ain't nothin gunna happen, Texans survive in this weather and we likes it! I just want to be able to enjoy this nice hot Texan summers and cold Texan wintars everwhar I go! An I'm da President so I said so! -Bush
Seems like a more appropriate headline. But how can you blame Microsoft? I mean really, the Microsoft vs DoJ thing already proved the DoJ and legal system really isn't doing their jobs well, so its only logical for Microsoft to step in and help them right? We should all thank MS for using their money exposing the inherent weaknesses in our judicial system, and then using more of their money to help patch it up themselves! Gates, Redmond Ranger.
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Hopefully RIM will learn their lesson with these things and maybe quit going after other people for stupid patents. In the latest issues I do side with RIM, but at the same time, they are getting what they deserve. RIM is hardly innocent here, they did this same crap with their stupid mini keyboard on the blackberry vs makers of PDAs with mini keyboards. Sharp Zaurus was doing the mini keyboard thing about 4 years before RIM put the first Blackberry on the market, so to me this is mostly karma coming back to RIM for their nonsense prior.
These kinds of things are always interesting to look at. Currently the cost of most of the more interesting robot systems are rather prohibitive to the poor geek tinkerer, but I expect that will change in the next few years. I recently started an radio controlled tank project and got into looking at some of the the various robot sites around for parts and was surprised to see what kinds of things are available and what has been done even at the garage hobby level. I can't wait until some of the more advanced robot technologies become a little more available to the garage hobbyist, I imagine we will really start to see the creative uses come out then. On a side note, is that picture a little frightening to anyone else?
I remember my HS physics teacher showing us how to steal CDs with magnets. Now he wasn't trying to teach that skill specifically, so much as use it as an example of electromagnetic properties that would actually get everyones attention. It amuses me that other industries haven't gone through such insane measures, but still refuse to look to themselves for the problem. Compare Gimp and Photoshop, most people will admit that Photoshop is indeed the more advanced product...but go try to buy Photoshop...CD $649, Download $649...So by downloading all you do is increase their profit margin sigificantly...and can anyone say that Photoshop really has $649 worth of extra features over Gimp (outside of a few professional areas)? Same goes for Office...
In theory, a large part of the argument is now about the quality of the copy since it is all digital. VHS degrades over time and music tapes degrade. mp3s and ripped DVDs don't degrade (unless you burn em, but then you still have copies to make new pure quality burns). What really kills me about this crap is that I have worked with high end recording equipment. CDs really aren't the amazing quality you would think. High end analog systems sound amazing, there are just some things that don't make it through the analog->digital conversion well, especially when you are converting down in quality so far for a CD. Even the high end digital systems sound amazingly better, the guy that I worked with on this stuff (I was just doing the electronic maintenance stuff, he was the musician) would usually only be able to fit 3 songs or so on a 5G DVD-RW. There is a ton of lost quality going down to CD.
I imagine it has less to do with politics as many of the conspiracy folks say. I imagine it has more to do with bureaucracy than anything. Almost without exception, government agencies are full of this nonsense. I expect the USPTO would have eventually come to this conclusion anyways. If there was any effect by the political arena, I am sure it had more to do with cleaning up some of the bureaucratic nonsense and getting it through in a timely fashion rather than actually affecting the outcome too much.
Is it just me or is it a little ironic for them to say this. I mean after all, didn't MS, along with most of the other modern computing giants, start as a couple of geek hobbyists in a garage somewhere? The Quest for Cash is getting a little beyond stupid these days. It is one thing to be cutthroat, unethical, and often illegal in business, but more and more the trends are following more along the lines of head in the sand, or pure insanity. At least when they are being cutthroat, unethical, and often illegal, they are a little more stable and predictable.
Sir, you should not have had the volume up so loud. LALALALALALA I can't hear you!
Uhm...mostly referring to the whole Apple vs MS fiasco... I don't know about cut and paste code theft, but MS has had a tendancy to say "Hey sure we will work with you" and once they get a good look at their new partners stuff "Oh we are sorry, we are gunna go it alone". And uhm completely legal? I don't quite follow how you can consider what they do completely legal when they have been found, in court, to be doing illegal things. But hey whatever.
That is exactly how patents are supposed to protect the inventor. However...it isn't the inventor that is abusing the system, its the patentor. Patenting something and then never making it, waiting for someone else to put the work and money into making it real, and then filing lawsuits. Patenting something that shouldn't be patented. Betamax vs VHS made sense and to me was decided correctly, however, by the way things are going now, it would be a patent lawsuit just for making a device that could play video on a TV screen regardless of it using any similar technolgy to do it.
Has anyone stopped to consider the impact this will have on the linux world? Average Joe computer user likely doesn't know anything about linux, if they have even heard of it at all. However Average Joe computer user has more than likely heard of Google and uses it quite frequently. If Average Joe is upset with Microsoft and their OS (which many of them are, even if they do just accept it as a fact of life) and hears that those Google folks have a replacement there is a good chance they will check it out. Sure there is a learning curve, but I have seen quite a few people that don't know much about linux or administration happily switch to Ubuntu because it lets them do all the basic things a computer is good for (Surfing, email, word processing, etc) and doesn't turn into a sluggish piece of junk after 6 months. This really could be a big deal if it catches on.
So I am curious now. If people run around and make alot of noise about how to defeat the censorship, won't the Chinese Government demand a fix to close those holes or send Google packing? This sorta puts the whole thing back at square one. Normally I would say full disclosure of security and things like this is a good thing, but in this case it may not be the best. Sort of a Google 0-day situation, this isn't something you want the authorities to know about, and something you don't want fixed for as long as possible.
Honestly...My take is that if they want to go down that road Sharp should sue both of them for infringment. Sharp Zaurus had the minikeyboard thing, email capabilities, etc a few years before the first Blackberry even hit the market. From what I can tell Sharp had the mini keyboard thing almost 4 years before the first Blackberry was on the market. I am also far more impressed with the capabilities of a Sharp Zaurus than I am with a cute email pager thing, but that is a whole nother thing entirely.
I thought most of the stars were divorced at least once.
Why would they ship a product that is likely to erase their own .dlls? What if it removed IE?!
from Lazy Boy TV on the "Obesity Epidemic" (Click on the TV to find the video reference) Grandpa, how did you ever survive? Well Johnny, it was terrible, there was cheese cake and fried chicken everywhere!
Dennis Leary did a bit on the idea of an obesity virus quite some time ago. I can't remember if its on Lock and Load or No Cure for cancer. There may be some accuracy to the research I suppose, but I am inclined to take the view that this really sounds like a cheap excuse. *gobble gobble gobble* I can't help it. I am feeding the virus! *gobble* *gobble* *gobble*
Damn...you beat me to the obvious one! An AC at that!
I said nothing about whether or not he deserved it, nor was I saying anything about if MS chooses to release their code or not. I also wasn't being terribly serious as you seem to be quite up in arms about these imagined points. I was just sort of making a jab at MS taking over the policing duties after they beat the law themselves. You know..the irony of MS stealing code...and then having their code stolen...Please calm down...
If these aren't drastically compressed in some fashion you are looking at a couple gigs of data per movie. Downloading a file that is 5+ gigs over a P2P application... If you are really hell bent on staying home you could probably order the actual DVD from a website and it show up before your download finished AND still be able to surf the web while you wait instead of having your link crushed under all the other people trying to download 5G worth of data from your computer.
Think about these kids in peer enviroments. The lack of social skills makes them the target for bullying and pranks. They don't tend to pick up on the flags that would indicate that the situation is a trick. It isn't about bullshitting and lying strictly, but in a sense its also about being able to tell when you are being bullshitted and lied to.
Don't you get it. This isn't evolution! This is Intelligent Design in motion! God is punishing the scientific minds that denounce Intelligent Design by giving them autism and making it harder for them to breed! Or maybe this coupled with Intelligent Design means that God has autism.
I am pretty sure I have seen this research in a number of places before. Typically it usually mentions Aspberger's Syndrome. I have also seen this called High Functioning Autism. Bascially people that seem to have alot of traits typical of autism but aren't considered fully autistic themselves.
I think the gamble is to see if they can't get them to hit New Orleans instead.
Alrighty Yall, quit yer bitchin. Ain't nothin gunna happen, Texans survive in this weather and we likes it! I just want to be able to enjoy this nice hot Texan summers and cold Texan wintars everwhar I go! An I'm da President so I said so! -Bush
Seems like a more appropriate headline. But how can you blame Microsoft? I mean really, the Microsoft vs DoJ thing already proved the DoJ and legal system really isn't doing their jobs well, so its only logical for Microsoft to step in and help them right? We should all thank MS for using their money exposing the inherent weaknesses in our judicial system, and then using more of their money to help patch it up themselves! Gates, Redmond Ranger.