Measuring real compensation is hard of course, but it gives a better measurement of what the average employee is getting [wikipedia.org]. And it's been going up. Look at the graph.
That chart has no explanation in Wikipedia, but a little digging finds similar charts some that include wages, salaries, and benefits of wage earners, salaried employees, CEOs, small business owners, etc., some that are limited to the paycheck of wage earners. Unfortunately for the wage earners, they mostly don't get stock options, profit sharing, pensions, and other benefits that higher paid employees do. Also, as others have pointed out, health insurance costs have gone up rapidly for the employer, but at no benefit to the wage earner. So the real take-home pay of wage earners has gone down in the last 10 years, even as costs have gone up for employers. The take-home pay of those earning top dollar has not fallen like it has for the lower echelon of workers, which is irrelevant to the point being made.
Patents don't need marketed products to be valid. What about the "non-essential" features MS targets? Well, if one's product includes a feature that violates a patent, Microsoft won't claim the entire product violates it - they will say just THAT feature violates it. Unfortunately that means the product incorporating, or relying on it, can't exist without modification and compensation to MS.
B&N is not arguing that non-essential features are not covered by patents. They are arguing that the patents are trivial and therefore not valid, that the Nook doesn't use those features, that MS charging twice as much for a non-essential feature than it does for the entire WP7 operating system is evidence that it is illegally trying to destroy its' competition, and that MS failed in its' duty to disclose to the USPTO prior art that it knew about, among other things.
. . . their claim that patents shouldnt be used to "extract" license fees from them.
They aren't claiming that.
They are claiming that they are trying to extort more than the patents would be worth if they were valid:
"Microsoft has impermissibly broadened the physical scope of the ’372, ’780,
’522, ’551, and ’233 patents in furtherance of a plan or scheme orchestrated by Microsoft and
its agents to eliminate or marginalize the competition to Microsoft’s own Windows Phone 7
mobile device operating system posed by the open source Android Operating System and
other open source operating systems. As part of this scheme, Microsoft has asserted patents
that extend only to arbitrary, outmoded, or non-essential design features, but uses these
patents to demand that every manufacturer of an Android-based mobile device take a license
from Microsoft and pay exorbitant licensing fees or face protracted and expensive patent
infringement litigation. The asserted patents do not have a lawful scope sufficient to control
the Android Operating System as Microsoft is attempting to do, and Microsoft’s misuse of
these patents directly harms both competition for and consumers of all eReaders,
smartphones, tablet computers and other mobile electronic devices."
They are also claiming that MS and Nokia illegally colluded to destroy Android using their combined market dominance and patent portfolios:
On information and belief, as part of Microsoft’s recently announced agreement
with Nokia to replace Nokia’s Symbian operating system with Microsoft’s own mobile device
operating system, Microsoft and Nokia discussed and apparently agreed upon a strategy for
coordinated offensive use of their patents. Indeed, in videotaped remarks made two days after
the Microsoft-Nokia agreement was announced, Nokia’s CEO Stephen Elop confirmed that
Microsoft and Nokia had discussed how their combined intellectual property portfolio is
“remarkably strong” and that Microsoft and Nokia intended to use this combined portfolio
both defensively and offensively.1 This type of horizontal agreement between holders of
significant patent portfolios is per se illegal under the antitrust laws, threatens competition for
mobile device operating systems and is further evidence of Microsoft’s efforts to dominate
and control Android and other open source operating systems.
but is asking for an NDA (a pretty standard thing) which B&N refuses to sign onto.
MS asked for an NDA just for a meeting to tell B&N what patents B&N infringes and how they infringe them. If that's a standard thing, something is wrong with the patent system - patents are supposed to encourage disclosure.
You can't just say, "but that isn't an important feature, so I can infringe on it without paying".
Which is why Barnes & Noble aren't saying that.
They are saying "but that isn't an important feature, and we don't use it"
and "but that isn't an important feature, so Microsoft shouldn't be able to charge more for the patent license than it costs to license Window Phone 7"
Ribbon interfaces are designed around Fitt's Law and the idea that the menus should taking up less screen space.
Then why does the ribbon take up more space than the combination of menus and non-context specific toolbars that I had before?
(yes, I realize the icons are somewhat larger and the difference in screen space is minor if you had a row or two of toolbars previously, but it still contradicts the idea of saving screen space being one of the driving forces for the MS Ribbon)
Personally, I dislike context-specificity that I can't control and so I would be willing to give up a little screen space to get it back.
. . . how to use Windows, I said that "when you get stuck, Right Click and see what shows up." A quick glance just now gives me (create) new (file of ) X type, view icons by detail lists, cut copy paste rename delete, properties, extract zipped files, open-with (some non-default program), and more.
My big logjam preventing me from slinging stuff in Linux is the lack of all those essential features off the right click menu. Some of them are there in one desktop-environ, some are in another, but not all of them. Do you know the backbone answer?
I can only speak for the Gnome 2 I'm using right now, but all of those show up (plus create folder, make link (shortcut), make archive, and others in your "and more"), depending on whether you're right-clicking on a file, a folder, or an empty space in the Nautilus side pane or viewer pane. That's slightly different than Windows, and it seems a little too context specific for my tastes (but the right click is intended to pop up a context sensitive menu, after all). I don't find it to be a problem at all, as it is trivially easy to discover the action I'm looking for. The only issue I have is if I instinctively try to click on an empty space when the file browser window is full.
Avid did for splicing film what the Macintosh did for hot type.
I don't know about Avid, but hot type was an anachronism long before the first Macintosh it the market. What did in hot type was offset lithography, which uses photographic techniques on oily photoresists coating aluminum sheets. (I remember because I learned how to use a Linotype machine in high school just as it was becoming obsolete in the early '70s.)
Anyways, I think it's an interesting phenomenon that generally "techy" people seem to sometimes get really bent out of shape about new tech.
This 3D being resurrected is not new tech. It is plain, old stereoscopy, it does give a large minority of viewers a headache, and it does not include all the 3D cues, like focus or change of perspective.
It doesn't give me a headache, though it does bother my tired old eyes a bit. It doesn't add much of anything for me, and like all movie tech, it can be distracting if poorly done. I can take it or leave it, and would rather leave it.
None of that is any kind of anti-3D anger. Why do you assume that criticisms of the hype is anything more than expressing a valid opinion?
(Now, real 3D might interest me.)
They have no concept at all to handle a major failure mode in one of their reactors, none at all.
For every disaster you plan for, there's always the chance of another one that makes the one you prepared for look like a tiny mishap.
That's right, which is why, when dealing with potential catastrophes, you not only should plan for significant events even if they have a very low probability, you also have to plan properly for what to do after failure occurs despite your best plans to prevent it.
And why do they have no plan? Well... because we can't plan for everything. We *did* have a plan for an earthquake. Then nature fucked us with a bigger one. We did know the risks of tsunamis -- but nobody thought of the possibility of a big one following a record quake.
That is incorrect. They considered the possibility of a big quake followed by a big tsunami, and settled on designing to handle the equivalent of about a 6.5 quake directly under the site and about a 6 meter tsunami. Even though they knew about quakes above 8.0 and tsunamis above 15 meters in the region, they discounted those possibilities because of their low probability. You need to consider not only the probability of something happening in a particular instance, but the consequences if that does happen, since possibilities will inevitably occur somewhere, sometime.
The thing is, even if they are both based on arbitrary fundamental measures, SI units are self-consistent, while imperial measurements are not. So a lot of arbitrary constants are required in the US that are not needed elsewhere.
This was an unprecedented earthquake and subsequent tsunami. A once in a millennium occurrence?
The sea wall in fron of the damaged plant was designed for a tsunami of about 6 meters in height (see here)
It seems that the probability for a violent tsunami, of which the wave height exceeds 5 m, is highest along the
Pacific coast in central Japan, reaching a value of 41 per cent.
Globally, there are about 5 recorded tsunamis a year with one over 10 meters high every few years:
see page 100
It's quite telling that Japanese cars and electronics targeted the premium market. It wasn't that they were making simpler, lower quality goods than the Europeans and Americans.
No, Japan started their inroads into the American economy selling cheap, low quality products. They were also typically smaller than American-made counterparts, such as sub-compact cars and transistorized radios, which made them popular even though they were not considered high quality. It wasn't until much later that they began to target the premium market.
Then Righthaven could revise its future standard form contracts to make it look like a license clearinghouse. The Journal could make this exclusive license to Righthaven, and Righthaven could send a PGP-signed takedown request the same day. Then it would sue a week later on the basis that the infringing copy was available on the web for that one week.
Yes, they probably could change the way they contract for this business to avoid the particular problem, but I doubt they could do it the way you are suggesting.
I was under the impression that time-limited exclusive licenses were standard practice elsewhere in the entertainment industry.
They may be standard practice in licensing arrangements, but licenses are not transfer of copyrights.
So you claim the deal is invalid because the licensee can terminate it without an Early Termination Fee. I don't follow the reasoning. As I understand it, Righthaven could solve all the problems the judge found by rephrasing the deal as a sublicensable exclusive license.
I did not intend to claim anything, the defendant is making the claims. And the judge ruled that Righthaven cannot sue for copyright infringement if they don't own the copyright, so, if that is upheld, an license would not be enough, exclusive or not.
The theory there would be 50 million climate refugees in the next five years . ..
Technically, that would be a hypothesis, not a theory.
Also, the quote from the GP: 'For once, a scientist put out an easily falsified Global Warming theory, that is "By 2010, there would be 50 million climate refugees, and they'd come from these specific places." ' is in line with TFA, but does not jibe with the report that TFA purports to refute.
What about ASCAP and BMI who do regularly sue bars and other venues that play music without paying royalties? They do not require copyright assignment.
Are you sure that ASCAP and BMI are actually the named plaintiffs in those cases?
As I understand the agreement (I only read part of it and IANAL, so caveat emptor) the copyright is assigned, but only after the infringement has occurred, meaning that Righthaven has no standing to sue. Also, the actual right to copy, make derivative works, and publish are suppopsed to be retained by the Las Vegas Journal Review, making the copyright "transfer" questionable.
My guess on the BSA or the *AAs, is that if and when they sue on the behalf of copyright holders, the actual copyright holder's name is used as the plaintiff in court.
Slashdot Mirror
Most new (commercial) roofs are white, reflective (silvery), or at least light colored, and are often required to be so by energy codes.
Cheap solar thermal panels do not run at high enough temperatures to make absorption refrigeration efficient.
That chart has no explanation in Wikipedia, but a little digging finds similar charts some that include wages, salaries, and benefits of wage earners, salaried employees, CEOs, small business owners, etc., some that are limited to the paycheck of wage earners. Unfortunately for the wage earners, they mostly don't get stock options, profit sharing, pensions, and other benefits that higher paid employees do. Also, as others have pointed out, health insurance costs have gone up rapidly for the employer, but at no benefit to the wage earner. So the real take-home pay of wage earners has gone down in the last 10 years, even as costs have gone up for employers. The take-home pay of those earning top dollar has not fallen like it has for the lower echelon of workers, which is irrelevant to the point being made.
Plaintiff registered its works in the United States in May and November 1980
B&N is not arguing that non-essential features are not covered by patents. They are arguing that the patents are trivial and therefore not valid, that the Nook doesn't use those features, that MS charging twice as much for a non-essential feature than it does for the entire WP7 operating system is evidence that it is illegally trying to destroy its' competition, and that MS failed in its' duty to disclose to the USPTO prior art that it knew about, among other things.
Prior art
They aren't claiming that.
They are claiming that they are trying to extort more than the patents would be worth if they were valid:
"Microsoft has impermissibly broadened the physical scope of the ’372, ’780, ’522, ’551, and ’233 patents in furtherance of a plan or scheme orchestrated by Microsoft and its agents to eliminate or marginalize the competition to Microsoft’s own Windows Phone 7 mobile device operating system posed by the open source Android Operating System and other open source operating systems. As part of this scheme, Microsoft has asserted patents that extend only to arbitrary, outmoded, or non-essential design features, but uses these patents to demand that every manufacturer of an Android-based mobile device take a license from Microsoft and pay exorbitant licensing fees or face protracted and expensive patent infringement litigation. The asserted patents do not have a lawful scope sufficient to control the Android Operating System as Microsoft is attempting to do, and Microsoft’s misuse of these patents directly harms both competition for and consumers of all eReaders, smartphones, tablet computers and other mobile electronic devices."
They are also claiming that MS and Nokia illegally colluded to destroy Android using their combined market dominance and patent portfolios:
On information and belief, as part of Microsoft’s recently announced agreement with Nokia to replace Nokia’s Symbian operating system with Microsoft’s own mobile device operating system, Microsoft and Nokia discussed and apparently agreed upon a strategy for coordinated offensive use of their patents. Indeed, in videotaped remarks made two days after the Microsoft-Nokia agreement was announced, Nokia’s CEO Stephen Elop confirmed that Microsoft and Nokia had discussed how their combined intellectual property portfolio is “remarkably strong” and that Microsoft and Nokia intended to use this combined portfolio both defensively and offensively.1 This type of horizontal agreement between holders of significant patent portfolios is per se illegal under the antitrust laws, threatens competition for mobile device operating systems and is further evidence of Microsoft’s efforts to dominate and control Android and other open source operating systems.
MS asked for an NDA just for a meeting to tell B&N what patents B&N infringes and how they infringe them. If that's a standard thing, something is wrong with the patent system - patents are supposed to encourage disclosure.
Which is why Barnes & Noble aren't saying that.
They are saying "but that isn't an important feature, and we don't use it"
and "but that isn't an important feature, so Microsoft shouldn't be able to charge more for the patent license than it costs to license Window Phone 7"
70's, sorry
No, I'm talking the early 60's, way before any Macs.
Adobe Acrobat X is not Reader. .pdfs in Linux.
According to their website X is available for Windows and Mac.
Other software is available for editing*
* YMMV
Then why does the ribbon take up more space than the combination of menus and non-context specific toolbars that I had before? (yes, I realize the icons are somewhat larger and the difference in screen space is minor if you had a row or two of toolbars previously, but it still contradicts the idea of saving screen space being one of the driving forces for the MS Ribbon) Personally, I dislike context-specificity that I can't control and so I would be willing to give up a little screen space to get it back.
I can only speak for the Gnome 2 I'm using right now, but all of those show up (plus create folder, make link (shortcut), make archive, and others in your "and more"), depending on whether you're right-clicking on a file, a folder, or an empty space in the Nautilus side pane or viewer pane. That's slightly different than Windows, and it seems a little too context specific for my tastes (but the right click is intended to pop up a context sensitive menu, after all). I don't find it to be a problem at all, as it is trivially easy to discover the action I'm looking for. The only issue I have is if I instinctively try to click on an empty space when the file browser window is full.
According to TFA, their main tool is a Java application, along with Lotus Notes, Adobe Reader, and Open Office.
I don't know about Avid, but hot type was an anachronism long before the first Macintosh it the market. What did in hot type was offset lithography, which uses photographic techniques on oily photoresists coating aluminum sheets. (I remember because I learned how to use a Linotype machine in high school just as it was becoming obsolete in the early '70s.)
This 3D being resurrected is not new tech. It is plain, old stereoscopy, it does give a large minority of viewers a headache, and it does not include all the 3D cues, like focus or change of perspective.
It doesn't give me a headache, though it does bother my tired old eyes a bit. It doesn't add much of anything for me, and like all movie tech, it can be distracting if poorly done. I can take it or leave it, and would rather leave it.
None of that is any kind of anti-3D anger. Why do you assume that criticisms of the hype is anything more than expressing a valid opinion?
(Now, real 3D might interest me.)
They have no concept at all to handle a major failure mode in one of their reactors, none at all.
That's right, which is why, when dealing with potential catastrophes, you not only should plan for significant events even if they have a very low probability, you also have to plan properly for what to do after failure occurs despite your best plans to prevent it.
That is incorrect. They considered the possibility of a big quake followed by a big tsunami, and settled on designing to handle the equivalent of about a 6.5 quake directly under the site and about a 6 meter tsunami. Even though they knew about quakes above 8.0 and tsunamis above 15 meters in the region, they discounted those possibilities because of their low probability. You need to consider not only the probability of something happening in a particular instance, but the consequences if that does happen, since possibilities will inevitably occur somewhere, sometime.
In France for instance, nuclear plants are designed to withstand an earthquake twice as strong as the 1000-year event calculated for each site.
After an advisory group issued nonbinding recommendations in 2002, Tokyo Electric Power Company, the plant owner and Japan’s biggest utility, raised its maximum projected tsunami at Fukushima Daiichi to between 17.7 and 18.7 feet — considerably higher than the 13-foot-high bluff [on which the plant sits]. Yet the company appeared to respond only by raising the level of an electric pump near the coast by 8 inches,
The thing is, even if they are both based on arbitrary fundamental measures, SI units are self-consistent, while imperial measurements are not. So a lot of arbitrary constants are required in the US that are not needed elsewhere.
The sea wall in fron of the damaged plant was designed for a tsunami of about 6 meters in height (see here)
It seems that the probability for a violent tsunami, of which the wave height exceeds 5 m, is highest along the Pacific coast in central Japan, reaching a value of 41 per cent.
Globally, there are about 5 recorded tsunamis a year with one over 10 meters high every few years: see page 100
No, Japan started their inroads into the American economy selling cheap, low quality products. They were also typically smaller than American-made counterparts, such as sub-compact cars and transistorized radios, which made them popular even though they were not considered high quality. It wasn't until much later that they began to target the premium market.
Yes, they probably could change the way they contract for this business to avoid the particular problem, but I doubt they could do it the way you are suggesting.
They may be standard practice in licensing arrangements, but licenses are not transfer of copyrights.
I did not intend to claim anything, the defendant is making the claims. And the judge ruled that Righthaven cannot sue for copyright infringement if they don't own the copyright, so, if that is upheld, an license would not be enough, exclusive or not.
Technically, that would be a hypothesis, not a theory.
Also, the quote from the GP: 'For once, a scientist put out an easily falsified Global Warming theory, that is "By 2010, there would be 50 million climate refugees, and they'd come from these specific places." ' is in line with TFA, but does not jibe with the report that TFA purports to refute.
Are you sure that ASCAP and BMI are actually the named plaintiffs in those cases?
As I understand the agreement (I only read part of it and IANAL, so caveat emptor) the copyright is assigned, but only after the infringement has occurred, meaning that Righthaven has no standing to sue. Also, the actual right to copy, make derivative works, and publish are suppopsed to be retained by the Las Vegas Journal Review, making the copyright "transfer" questionable.
My guess on the BSA or the *AAs, is that if and when they sue on the behalf of copyright holders, the actual copyright holder's name is used as the plaintiff in court.