If the best thing you can do is throw out an incumbant crook for a new crook, that's what you do, or you can abstain to make a statement or write in "Alfred E. Newman," or at least a real person you respect and think would be a great {insert political office here}.
A trade mark is in effect only for the very specific industry niche for which it is registered and used in. If Mattel (is Mattel now part of Hasbro?) is in the pornography business with models named Barbie, then the porn site can be infringing. However, Mattel cannot just file a trademark and squat on it, nor can they file the trademark if a porn site has already established even a common-law trade name in that specific industry. So sad, too bad.
This is why if you wanted to make a toilet tissue named "microsoft" with a picture of a nerd wearing glasses, or boxer shorts with a similar theme, you can legally do so (presuming Microsoft is not producing personal hygiene items). However, if you make that nerd look too much like Gates, then you can get into hot water for bad faith and likeness issues, but for the trademark itself legally you'd be in the clear (but in for a legal battle because Microsoft Corp. has the money and power to tie you up in the courts for years until you either run out of money and drop the suit, but if you have the fortitude to follow through you'd eventually win. You'll be broke, but you'll win.).
D'oh forgot to close the anchor. Sorry about that! I should have used preview.:(
One more thing I'd like to add: Where META tags hardly affect search results any more thanks to spammers' polluting the search engines and requiring Google, Yahoo, etc. to come up with new ways to calculate relevant search results and META tags only have a very slight effect, and only if they are actually related to the content, why are they wasting our tax dollars with this legislation? I know, most legislators are lawyers and don't give a crap about wasting others' money, but surely they have SOME semblence of a conscience? Oh, right, this is the American Congress we're discussing. Thank god November is coming up real soon. I'm voting Libertarian this time.
If they want to do something, they should legislate cloaking and linkfarms out of existence. I'm sure they'll be at least as effective as their solution for the spam problem has been.;)
Well in that case the parents should be, you know, do actual parenting and supervise their children? Oh personal responsibility, wherefore art thou in this millennium? We miss you personal responsibility, please come back.
Or, the parents could, uh, oh, I don't know, use various filters to limit young children to G-rated web sites, or choose an Internet provider or proxy service which guarantees all content they provide access to is child-friendly?
The fact that some porn star might be named "Barbara," or "Barbie" for short, and there is a doll with the name Barbie should not make using the word "Barbie" to promote the site a felony, or any kind of criminal or civil infraction. Heck, even if some porn site were spoofing Barbie with real live models, it should be protected by the law as parody.
What everyone else considers stable is packages which usable and relatively free of fatal defects. What Debian considers stable is packages which are hopelessly out of date
When I've tried Debian I've been extremely disappointed. Sure, the packages may be stable, but what good are they when the kernel is so out of date that, say, an 865 or 915 chipset won't boot the install CD without a kernel panic? (I'm sure that the latest stable release will boot just fine on those chipsets now, but even at the time, when I tried the then-current stable release, neither the 865 nor the 915 chipsets were bleeding edge and have been around for a while).
Debian was great back in the day where chipsets had a fairly long lifespan, but now where a chipset may be around for only 6 to 9 months until the next generation comes out, they really, really need to revisit their standard for stable.
To be fair, to get the same level OS, you need to choose XP pro in place of OS X, so the XP Pro upgrade is necessary for an apples-apples comparison (no pun intended).
I'd rather take my chances of having a terrorist live next door than to sacrifice my constitutionally-protected liberties. Otherwise, what the hell makes America better than anywhere else? What good is it to "protect democracy" when we actually don't have our freedom any more?
If you want me to ring up my own order, give me a damn discount for it, otherwise I'll go to a clerk and ensure that at least one American can keep a job for a day.
Now to answer your question based on my comment above:
Self-serve pumps for gasoline? Yes, I use those for my car because I don't want some slob scratching up my car but when driving the trucks I don't give a flip about the paint as long as it protects the steel from rusting, so I go full serve then. There is actually a benefit to doing the work yourself when paying someone else for the privilege.
D'oh you're right, I forgot that Ubuntu does not provide much by way of options. But then, I've never installed ubunto on a dual boot system. (in recent years) I've installed these on dual boot configurations: NLD and SuSE, Slackware (slackware is a bit more work but expected with its BSD-like mentality, if a novice you're expected to RTFM), Mandriva, Fedora (I still do not like Fedora, at least not as a desktop OS, as its GUI is disorganized), and a couple of others.
I haven't installed a distribution which does not give you the option to change the order of the displayed OS options, which boots by default, how long it should wait before automagically booting the default, or even not install grub or lilo to the MBR, but another location, and so forth. What distribution did you install which never gave you the option to change its configuration?
If they don't have the staff on hand to do this sort of thing, I'd be very surprised. Besides, my point isn't that they should be doing this, it's that their true competitors can afford to do this (and probably DO decompile drivers and analyze the GPUs very closely) so why slight third-party developers who are actively willing to work to develop drivers for your products for FREE?
It's amazing how so many slashdotters who work in the "real" world are purposely argumentive for solely the purpose of being difficult.
Way to stick to the issue, utopianfiat! (Why must you stoop to a personal attack? Good grief.)
The parent is right in pointing out what colocation is. What the GP meant (without knowing the terms) is why is there no redundancy in the form of clustering, or at worst, replicated servers? Surely an outfit that large shouldn't be relying on a single data center.
Actually, their competitors are unaffected because:
1. They have large enough staff to decompile and perform clean reverse engineering of NVidia's drivers, e.g., one team analyzes the decompiled code and takes notes (without copying code of course), another team designs improvements and implements based on that analysis
2. Their competitors own electron microscopes, making analysis of the chip internals relatively simple.
Now tell me: why are the likes of NVidia and ATI keeping their products undocumented and their drivers closed?
And to counter your argument: what happens in two years when ATI and NVidia decide your card is too old to support, and yet it still performs very well but you NEED the features in the latest kernel and latest x.org? Go ahead, buy a new video card -- oops, nope, sorry, they changed slot specs again, and PCI Express cards are no longer available because PCI-X finally gained market share in the consumer market and PCI-E ended up as short-lived as VLB did in the VLB vs. PCI war.
(do I expect PCI-E to die? No, it was a hypothetical example showing the potential problem with proprietary drivers)
When I voted for him, it was not in hindsight. If you have such a good grasp on the future, could you please give me the winning numbers for all state lotteries for the next 30 days? Thanks.:-p
I realize this is going to be an unpopular opinion here, but no one ever considers the idea that maybe Microsoft is trying to actually change it's old business practices.
Let's see:
- did they stop their get the fud campaign?
- did they quit redefining "downtime" in their TCO comparisons?
- did they disctontinue the "genuine advantage" spyware program and provide uninstallers?
- are they opening up the document formats and protocols for interoperability?
- Are they offering their WMA codecs and/or publishing specs for interoperability?
- Are they implementing a de-activation feature for easy transfer of software (including resale of old/retired software to other people)?
I voted for George Bush because he promissed me a smaller and less invasive government.
That's why I voted for him, too, and that IS what he got. To disagree with him would make you a dissident or enemy combatant.;) Okay, it's not quite that bad but I am extremely, extremely disappointed in him, and the GOP in general. His administration is what is making me go Libertarian, which seems to be the true conservative party of today.
Slashdot Mirror
Solution: MythTV.
havn't I read this story before? It's a dupe!!!
If the best thing you can do is throw out an incumbant crook for a new crook, that's what you do, or you can abstain to make a statement or write in "Alfred E. Newman," or at least a real person you respect and think would be a great {insert political office here}.
A trade mark is in effect only for the very specific industry niche for which it is registered and used in. If Mattel (is Mattel now part of Hasbro?) is in the pornography business with models named Barbie, then the porn site can be infringing. However, Mattel cannot just file a trademark and squat on it, nor can they file the trademark if a porn site has already established even a common-law trade name in that specific industry. So sad, too bad.
This is why if you wanted to make a toilet tissue named "microsoft" with a picture of a nerd wearing glasses, or boxer shorts with a similar theme, you can legally do so (presuming Microsoft is not producing personal hygiene items). However, if you make that nerd look too much like Gates, then you can get into hot water for bad faith and likeness issues, but for the trademark itself legally you'd be in the clear (but in for a legal battle because Microsoft Corp. has the money and power to tie you up in the courts for years until you either run out of money and drop the suit, but if you have the fortitude to follow through you'd eventually win. You'll be broke, but you'll win.).
D'oh forgot to close the anchor. Sorry about that! I should have used preview. :(
;)
One more thing I'd like to add: Where META tags hardly affect search results any more thanks to spammers' polluting the search engines and requiring Google, Yahoo, etc. to come up with new ways to calculate relevant search results and META tags only have a very slight effect, and only if they are actually related to the content, why are they wasting our tax dollars with this legislation? I know, most legislators are lawyers and don't give a crap about wasting others' money, but surely they have SOME semblence of a conscience? Oh, right, this is the American Congress we're discussing. Thank god November is coming up real soon. I'm voting Libertarian this time.
If they want to do something, they should legislate cloaking and linkfarms out of existence. I'm sure they'll be at least as effective as their solution for the spam problem has been.
Well in that case the parents should be, you know, do actual parenting and supervise their children? Oh personal responsibility, wherefore art thou in this millennium? We miss you personal responsibility, please come back.
Or, the parents could, uh, oh, I don't know, use various filters to limit young children to G-rated web sites, or choose an Internet provider or proxy service which guarantees all content they provide access to is child-friendly?
The fact that some porn star might be named "Barbara," or "Barbie" for short, and there is a doll with the name Barbie should not make using the word "Barbie" to promote the site a felony, or any kind of criminal or civil infraction. Heck, even if some porn site were spoofing Barbie with real live models, it should be protected by the law as parody.
A law I WOULD agree with is requiring porn sites to include the meta tags which declare the rating of a site - the browser which has by far the majority share of the market and comes preinstalled on more than 85% of all computers shipped (or is it still >90%?) supports content filtering out of the box. This feature should be extended and should be offered by all serious browsers. Then, adults can choose to turn it on or off as they please, and they can choose to keep their kids protected. Sure, the kids could find a way around it, but if the kids are that determined to see porn, they're not going to search Google for "Barbie" but are going to search for "clit" or "cum shot" or "boobies" or "tits" and not for some kid's cartoon or toy name. To require porn sites (er, "adult entertainment") to implement such tags is not unreasonable, and does not abridge their freedom of expression in any way, shape, or form.
What about Barbie spoof sites featuring Barbie dolls in, um, "interesting" situations?
Much like the couch porn and other spoof sites featuring inanimate objects in various positions.
The problem is this:
Many people have the impression that:
What everyone else considers stable is packages which usable and relatively free of fatal defects.
What Debian considers stable is packages which are hopelessly out of date
When I've tried Debian I've been extremely disappointed. Sure, the packages may be stable, but what good are they when the kernel is so out of date that, say, an 865 or 915 chipset won't boot the install CD without a kernel panic? (I'm sure that the latest stable release will boot just fine on those chipsets now, but even at the time, when I tried the then-current stable release, neither the 865 nor the 915 chipsets were bleeding edge and have been around for a while).
Debian was great back in the day where chipsets had a fairly long lifespan, but now where a chipset may be around for only 6 to 9 months until the next generation comes out, they really, really need to revisit their standard for stable.
To be fair, to get the same level OS, you need to choose XP pro in place of OS X, so the XP Pro upgrade is necessary for an apples-apples comparison (no pun intended).
2cc ought to be enough heat sink compound for anyone! :D
Yes but what we have now is what one ends up with when all three branches are controlled by one party. Get out and vote in November.
I'd rather take my chances of having a terrorist live next door than to sacrifice my constitutionally-protected liberties. Otherwise, what the hell makes America better than anywhere else? What good is it to "protect democracy" when we actually don't have our freedom any more?
Vote. Vote wisely. Vote out incumbents.
Actually that is the mentality of both extreme left and right wingers, it is only the "reasoning" they use to justify the means which differs.
I refuse to use self-checkout "services"
If you want me to ring up my own order, give me a damn discount for it, otherwise I'll go to a clerk and ensure that at least one American can keep a job for a day.
Now to answer your question based on my comment above:
Self-serve pumps for gasoline? Yes, I use those for my car because I don't want some slob scratching up my car but when driving the trucks I don't give a flip about the paint as long as it protects the steel from rusting, so I go full serve then. There is actually a benefit to doing the work yourself when paying someone else for the privilege.
Look at it this way: Your monster PC will lower your heating oil bills in the winter. :)
New project idea: how to turn a Windows cluster into an on-demand water heater.
D'oh you're right, I forgot that Ubuntu does not provide much by way of options. But then, I've never installed ubunto on a dual boot system. (in recent years) I've installed these on dual boot configurations: NLD and SuSE, Slackware (slackware is a bit more work but expected with its BSD-like mentality, if a novice you're expected to RTFM), Mandriva, Fedora (I still do not like Fedora, at least not as a desktop OS, as its GUI is disorganized), and a couple of others.
I haven't installed a distribution which does not give you the option to change the order of the displayed OS options, which boots by default, how long it should wait before automagically booting the default, or even not install grub or lilo to the MBR, but another location, and so forth. What distribution did you install which never gave you the option to change its configuration?
If they don't have the staff on hand to do this sort of thing, I'd be very surprised. Besides, my point isn't that they should be doing this, it's that their true competitors can afford to do this (and probably DO decompile drivers and analyze the GPUs very closely) so why slight third-party developers who are actively willing to work to develop drivers for your products for FREE?
It's amazing how so many slashdotters who work in the "real" world are purposely argumentive for solely the purpose of being difficult.
Way to stick to the issue, utopianfiat! (Why must you stoop to a personal attack? Good grief.)
The parent is right in pointing out what colocation is. What the GP meant (without knowing the terms) is why is there no redundancy in the form of clustering, or at worst, replicated servers? Surely an outfit that large shouldn't be relying on a single data center.
Actually, their competitors are unaffected because:
1. They have large enough staff to decompile and perform clean reverse engineering of NVidia's drivers, e.g., one team analyzes the decompiled code and takes notes (without copying code of course), another team designs improvements and implements based on that analysis
2. Their competitors own electron microscopes, making analysis of the chip internals relatively simple.
Now tell me: why are the likes of NVidia and ATI keeping their products undocumented and their drivers closed?
And to counter your argument: what happens in two years when ATI and NVidia decide your card is too old to support, and yet it still performs very well but you NEED the features in the latest kernel and latest x.org? Go ahead, buy a new video card -- oops, nope, sorry, they changed slot specs again, and PCI Express cards are no longer available because PCI-X finally gained market share in the consumer market and PCI-E ended up as short-lived as VLB did in the VLB vs. PCI war.
(do I expect PCI-E to die? No, it was a hypothetical example showing the potential problem with proprietary drivers)
When I voted for him, it was not in hindsight. If you have such a good grasp on the future, could you please give me the winning numbers for all state lotteries for the next 30 days? Thanks. :-p
Let's see:
- did they stop their get the fud campaign?
- did they quit redefining "downtime" in their TCO comparisons?
- did they disctontinue the "genuine advantage" spyware program and provide uninstallers?
- are they opening up the document formats and protocols for interoperability?
- Are they offering their WMA codecs and/or publishing specs for interoperability?
- Are they implementing a de-activation feature for easy transfer of software (including resale of old/retired software to other people)?
They learned that in order to appear competitive, you never label a product 1.0. ;)
New betting pool:
Will that star go nova first, or will DNF and Vista be released first?
Heck: will our Sun go red giant before DNF ships?
(yeah I know, ZOMG DNF is late!!111!!! is getting old)
I voted for George Bush because he promissed me a smaller and less invasive government.
;) Okay, it's not quite that bad but I am extremely, extremely disappointed in him, and the GOP in general. His administration is what is making me go Libertarian, which seems to be the true conservative party of today.
That's why I voted for him, too, and that IS what he got. To disagree with him would make you a dissident or enemy combatant.