Well, 'right mind' might be the key word. It is a question of what one values, and we live in a society that values extroverted activities.. so people who prefer quieter places and dislike the dense populations of cities are considered 'not in their right mind'. I live right next to a major city and have to go in for work... there is nothing it can offer that offsets the annoyance of dealing with so many people, thus I actually really miss working in an office park.
Sounds like a fine grasp of technology to me. Everyone knows when the word 'PC' is used the speaker means an x86 CPU running a Windows varient and Mac referrers to a computer made by Apple. In the real world words have multiple meanings depending on the context, and going around complaining that someone is using the words incorrectly if they were being used in another context is needlessly pedantic.
I think the bigger problem is MythTV and xbmc. They are great if you enjoy playing with computers, but if what you want is a zero maintance device that lets you start interacting with the content you want, they are pretty terrible and require non-trivial upfront research since you have to make sure all the 'old' hardware you get for it will work.
Yeah, but it would be nice if the receivers did not have to bow simply because they can not afford to fight back. The rights of IP ownership are often much more restrictive then the companies sending out these C&D letters with they were.. but they have discovered that they can abuse the civil system to make it behave like they have rights they do not, simply because it would be too costly for the defendant to defend themselves.
Patents are almost always more limited then people think. Usually when a case gets media (even niche/blog) attention someone comes up with a good soundbyte for describing the patent then everyone takes that for the whole document.. completely ignoring all those sections that explain the details regarding what it actually covers....
Patent reporting has gotten as bad as science reporting.. I might despise software patents, but I rarely trust the accuracy of stories about them.
Yeah, but it is important to many geeks to believe that whatever they personally like is the objective best.. which is why you see so many rants about the inferiority of the competition or how people are only buying the other product because they are brainwashed or stupid or image conscious or any other number of reasons that assist in the speaker having to confront the idea that intelligent people can like different things.
Since many of the problems and complaints people have with the DoJ's behavior have crossed directors and presidents, I do not think race factors in here. These are institutional problems that have been around for quite some time.
Why do I picture, if a case did move forward, they would claim national security interests so they did not have to reveal any of their documentation for the cases....
Sadly, yep. The laws are functioning 'as intended'. Our legal system was never really designed to be fair or equal access, it has a lot of the 'individualism' mentality built into it, with justice going to those who have the money and power to utilize it. This is generally billed as 'freedom' since more of your fate is in your own hands.. or at minimal if your chances are not good you can blame the victim more.
Sadly, while the US can seize foreign assets, often courts rule that foreign companies do not have standing to sue. The standards for what constitutes having a local presence seem to vary according to which side the government is on....
True, he would not meet requirements for a recusal type 'conflict of interest' by a long shot.
I was more thinking of the defense team's right to exclude jury members who they feel would have a bias. As a patent holder it could be argued that he was in favor of patents being upheld. Though the more troubling element is it sounds like he was the one explaining 'what counts' in patent law to the jury (instead of a neutral patent lawyer) so it sounds like he was giving interpretations that were skewed (through personal opinion) in favor of patent holders, and as an authority figure (since no other jury member had that background) his personal biased opinion held additional sway.
Which doesn't make the outcome right or wrong, but it is a rather significant push that the defense attorney could have not allowed.
I think Groklaw did a pretty solid job of going over the quotes. The later section about how much they studied the instructions do not invalidate his rather shaky interpretation of what counts as prior art, esp since he did not use the same standard to determine what counted as infringement.
I am kinda caught between 'shouldn't being a patent holder be considered a conflict of interests and caused the defense to disqualify the person?' and 'wait, a jury member with actual knowledge of a field? that is almost like a peer!'.
Meh, at this point I try not to follow these case too closely... while I hate software patents and think they need to be abolished, I find the reporting and oversimplification almost as bad...
I am not sure they were less misogynistic, they could be really bad actually. However, they were quieter about it since they were more likely to keep to themselves.
Critical mass. People like Ubuntu because lots of other people like Ubuntu... so finding community/support/apps is easier. Even when looking for solutions to problems in packages that exist in most distributions, I have found the lions share of the discussion and help out there is Ubuntu-centric, so there is a real support advantage to going that route.. of course then one gets used to the particular way it is layed out and build up personal/brand preference... most users stick with whatever they were introduced to first, and introduction often happens through other people.
Though I admit, I stubbornly stick with CentOS for many of the same reasons. At least I broke my Slackware habit....
I have very mixed feelings on the 'do programmers need a degree' thing. Setting aside the problem that a degree does not mean they actually learned anything..... I have known some fantastically bright programmers who were self taught and they can put out some fantastic finished products... but I keep finding them a headache to work with since they keep having to reinvent things that were solved decades ago (simple lack of knowledge) and often have trouble writing things in such a way that other programmers can work with it, leaving maintenance nightmares.
I have gathered that today's culture is slowly trying to push out the personality types that were common 20 years ago. Programming used to be a highly stigmatized 'nerd' domain filled with introverts... today there is a lot more cash and social acceptance behind it, so the field is getting filled with people who are far more sociable and extroverted. It has also been pushing out women.. CS is one of the few STEM areas that has actually gotten worse when it comes to gender ratio over the last 30 years, with a decline of something like 30%. So yeah, significant cultural shift though the 90s and 00s.
Sadly there seems to often be an attitude of 'I selected programmers who are ideal for X, X worked, therefor X is the way to program!'... which if you follow the mantra too closely can really limit your pool of talent since not only do you have to find someone who is good at the job, but someone who enjoys working in that very specific environment..... it decreases workplace flexibility.
Then again, with the rise of brogammer culture, I gather a lot of place are not concerned with flexibility or diversity in the first place and actively encourage mono-cultures. And of course it is another way to push out all those pesky introverts who keep thinking they are people.....
Well, they are 'civil matters' because that is what they have been defined to be. What is 'civil' and what is 'criminal' is pretty much 'what requires lawsuit' vs 'what the government will enforce', thus anything can be moved from one category to another.
Oh the whole, I really would prefer police be involved when there is a conflict, rather then have to decide 'can I afford to enforce my legal rights? can I afford to defend my legal rights? or should I sit and accept these crimes against me because I do not have the spare resources'. The civil system strongly favors those who have the extra time, money, or experience to utilize it... when in many ways, if there is a law, law enforcement should be actually enforcing it.
Unfortunately this shows one of the big problems with our legal system. Someone has a low/no cost method of harassing people, but you can not go to the police and the DA will not help you, your only option is to sue at your own cost.
While people like to comment how 'sue happy' our culture is, this is a fine example of this not really being the case. Many of our laws are written in such a way that the only way to enforce the law is a private lawsuit rather then the DoJ actually doing its job. So the only way to get us out of being a 'sue' culture would be to make it so these laws are enforced by law enforcement rather then private dollars.
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Well, 'right mind' might be the key word. It is a question of what one values, and we live in a society that values extroverted activities.. so people who prefer quieter places and dislike the dense populations of cities are considered 'not in their right mind'. I live right next to a major city and have to go in for work... there is nothing it can offer that offsets the annoyance of dealing with so many people, thus I actually really miss working in an office park.
Sounds like a fine grasp of technology to me. Everyone knows when the word 'PC' is used the speaker means an x86 CPU running a Windows varient and Mac referrers to a computer made by Apple. In the real world words have multiple meanings depending on the context, and going around complaining that someone is using the words incorrectly if they were being used in another context is needlessly pedantic.
I think the bigger problem is MythTV and xbmc. They are great if you enjoy playing with computers, but if what you want is a zero maintance device that lets you start interacting with the content you want, they are pretty terrible and require non-trivial upfront research since you have to make sure all the 'old' hardware you get for it will work.
I don't care.
Yeah, but it would be nice if the receivers did not have to bow simply because they can not afford to fight back. The rights of IP ownership are often much more restrictive then the companies sending out these C&D letters with they were.. but they have discovered that they can abuse the civil system to make it behave like they have rights they do not, simply because it would be too costly for the defendant to defend themselves.
Patents are almost always more limited then people think. Usually when a case gets media (even niche/blog) attention someone comes up with a good soundbyte for describing the patent then everyone takes that for the whole document.. completely ignoring all those sections that explain the details regarding what it actually covers....
Patent reporting has gotten as bad as science reporting.. I might despise software patents, but I rarely trust the accuracy of stories about them.
Yeah, but it is important to many geeks to believe that whatever they personally like is the objective best.. which is why you see so many rants about the inferiority of the competition or how people are only buying the other product because they are brainwashed or stupid or image conscious or any other number of reasons that assist in the speaker having to confront the idea that intelligent people can like different things.
Wow, run on sentence....
Since many of the problems and complaints people have with the DoJ's behavior have crossed directors and presidents, I do not think race factors in here. These are institutional problems that have been around for quite some time.
Why do I picture, if a case did move forward, they would claim national security interests so they did not have to reveal any of their documentation for the cases....
Sadly, yep. The laws are functioning 'as intended'. Our legal system was never really designed to be fair or equal access, it has a lot of the 'individualism' mentality built into it, with justice going to those who have the money and power to utilize it. This is generally billed as 'freedom' since more of your fate is in your own hands.. or at minimal if your chances are not good you can blame the victim more.
Sadly, while the US can seize foreign assets, often courts rule that foreign companies do not have standing to sue. The standards for what constitutes having a local presence seem to vary according to which side the government is on....
It is also possible he did not disclose his status as a patent holder. That would be an interesting twist.....
*nods* which makes me wonder if that alone could get the results thrown out.
True, he would not meet requirements for a recusal type 'conflict of interest' by a long shot.
I was more thinking of the defense team's right to exclude jury members who they feel would have a bias. As a patent holder it could be argued that he was in favor of patents being upheld. Though the more troubling element is it sounds like he was the one explaining 'what counts' in patent law to the jury (instead of a neutral patent lawyer) so it sounds like he was giving interpretations that were skewed (through personal opinion) in favor of patent holders, and as an authority figure (since no other jury member had that background) his personal biased opinion held additional sway.
Which doesn't make the outcome right or wrong, but it is a rather significant push that the defense attorney could have not allowed.
I think Groklaw did a pretty solid job of going over the quotes. The later section about how much they studied the instructions do not invalidate his rather shaky interpretation of what counts as prior art, esp since he did not use the same standard to determine what counted as infringement.
I am kinda caught between 'shouldn't being a patent holder be considered a conflict of interests and caused the defense to disqualify the person?' and 'wait, a jury member with actual knowledge of a field? that is almost like a peer!'.
Meh, at this point I try not to follow these case too closely... while I hate software patents and think they need to be abolished, I find the reporting and oversimplification almost as bad...
I am not sure they were less misogynistic, they could be really bad actually. However, they were quieter about it since they were more likely to keep to themselves.
Critical mass. People like Ubuntu because lots of other people like Ubuntu... so finding community/support/apps is easier. Even when looking for solutions to problems in packages that exist in most distributions, I have found the lions share of the discussion and help out there is Ubuntu-centric, so there is a real support advantage to going that route.. of course then one gets used to the particular way it is layed out and build up personal/brand preference... most users stick with whatever they were introduced to first, and introduction often happens through other people.
Though I admit, I stubbornly stick with CentOS for many of the same reasons. At least I broke my Slackware habit....
Great.. now the clusterexpletive that was the wired thread can continue on slashdot.....
I have very mixed feelings on the 'do programmers need a degree' thing. Setting aside the problem that a degree does not mean they actually learned anything..... I have known some fantastically bright programmers who were self taught and they can put out some fantastic finished products... but I keep finding them a headache to work with since they keep having to reinvent things that were solved decades ago (simple lack of knowledge) and often have trouble writing things in such a way that other programmers can work with it, leaving maintenance nightmares.
I have gathered that today's culture is slowly trying to push out the personality types that were common 20 years ago. Programming used to be a highly stigmatized 'nerd' domain filled with introverts... today there is a lot more cash and social acceptance behind it, so the field is getting filled with people who are far more sociable and extroverted. It has also been pushing out women.. CS is one of the few STEM areas that has actually gotten worse when it comes to gender ratio over the last 30 years, with a decline of something like 30%. So yeah, significant cultural shift though the 90s and 00s.
Sadly there seems to often be an attitude of 'I selected programmers who are ideal for X, X worked, therefor X is the way to program!'... which if you follow the mantra too closely can really limit your pool of talent since not only do you have to find someone who is good at the job, but someone who enjoys working in that very specific environment..... it decreases workplace flexibility.
Then again, with the rise of brogammer culture, I gather a lot of place are not concerned with flexibility or diversity in the first place and actively encourage mono-cultures. And of course it is another way to push out all those pesky introverts who keep thinking they are people.....
Well, they are 'civil matters' because that is what they have been defined to be. What is 'civil' and what is 'criminal' is pretty much 'what requires lawsuit' vs 'what the government will enforce', thus anything can be moved from one category to another.
Oh the whole, I really would prefer police be involved when there is a conflict, rather then have to decide 'can I afford to enforce my legal rights? can I afford to defend my legal rights? or should I sit and accept these crimes against me because I do not have the spare resources'. The civil system strongly favors those who have the extra time, money, or experience to utilize it... when in many ways, if there is a law, law enforcement should be actually enforcing it.
Unfortunately this shows one of the big problems with our legal system. Someone has a low/no cost method of harassing people, but you can not go to the police and the DA will not help you, your only option is to sue at your own cost.
While people like to comment how 'sue happy' our culture is, this is a fine example of this not really being the case. Many of our laws are written in such a way that the only way to enforce the law is a private lawsuit rather then the DoJ actually doing its job. So the only way to get us out of being a 'sue' culture would be to make it so these laws are enforced by law enforcement rather then private dollars.
Western PA is one example. Places that had large Irish populations since it is a construct that jumped from Gaelic (I think) to English.