It would award patents to people who first file for the patents, instead of those first to invent, it limits damages patent holders can collect in infringement lawsuits, and it creates a new procedure for those questioning the validity of a patent to challenge it after it's been granted. - FTFA
Right there.
A invents X. B invents X. C invents X. C files for patent.
Under the current system, C can't have the patent because A and B have prior art. (Assuming the USPTO does its job.)
Under the proposed system, according to the article, C gets the patent and A and B are screwed.
This is, of course, assuming the article has ANY clue what is really in the proposed legislation.
You can argue that the USPTO is not doing its job all you want, but there's no evidence that it will start with new legislation. If the only 2 options are "make the USPTO do its job" and the new legislation, the former is a LOT better.
No, he merely said that he never ASSUMES it is. It might very well BE the best thing for the customer as well as the businessman. You've taken the point in reverse.
He's saying that the fact that M. Dell is using Ubuntu should not play a major factor into what distro Dell decides to ship to its customers. The opposite is not true... If he were to pick a distro AFTER the decision had been made, he may very well choose to use the same distro his company is shipping.
We don't know if that decision has been made, what it is, or why M. Dell chose Ubuntu. Making assumptions on any that is foolhardy at best. But then, that's what journalism means today. Making half-assed assumptions and printing them as fact. When you're wrong, you just write the retraction in tiny print on the billionth page.
The process also totally ignores environmental factors and random chance.
I'm not arguing that Da Vinci wasn't brilliant. But in today's society, would he even be noticed? We have more geniuses than ever, and as such, they are less noteworthy than ever. In Da Vinci's time, it was dangerous and difficult to be a genius. Being different was a lot harder back then, and if you should come up with an idea that was against the local religion, you would probably die. Now if you go against the grain, you merely get screamed at, screamed with, and get a lot of publicity. Not necessarily in that order.
As long as we're advocating aliases, don't forget about spamgourmet.com. I used it for years before switching to GMail's servers. GMail's spam catching is so good that I don't worry anymore, but before that... Nightmare.
For those that don't know: Spamgourmet lets you have unlimited aliases, so you just create a new alias for every site you put your email address on. The creation is automatic (happens the first time that email addy is mailed to) and if you later decide it's sending spam, you can turn it off completely. (It's actually got a lot more features than that, but that's the basics.)
Oh, and it's free.
And appears to be done right now... Hmm... Maybe not such a good choice then. Bleh.
Yeah, but it's a shitty implementation. For instance, it doesn't allow you to set 'leave mail on server' even though GMail keeps the mail anyhow. This means that you can't POP from 2 mail clients (home, work, blackberry, etc) because once you pop the mail once, it won't pop to the other client. No matter what you do.
We switched to GMail here at work and that's been the biggest problem it. I've taken to just using the web mail client for my account, just as if there was no pop access at all.
Yes, I used POP as a verb. It's easy and short and cute.;)
Why oh why do I have too much money and not powerful enough products!? -cries-
No seriously. Some of us find the product to match the price. I have a $400 PDA that doesn't do nearly what this does. That puts this definitely in the 'nice' price range.
I think you meant 'DOS attack', but it was more like a self-slashdotting.
As for people... Combine laziness and hatred and you end up with a gajillion people that will wait until the last possible second to deal with it. It shouldn't be a real big surprise.
Bragging rights. And the tech demos were fun for about 5 minutes.
Notice I'm not defending my purchase at all. I was only marginally impressed with that card over my previous $150 card. That's not a real good feeling, I can tell ya. I'll probably be buying one of the $200 8600's shortly after they come out. And only that because I'm going to be putting together a new system.
Yes, it's a Stock Keeping Unit. When a manager wants to talk about the variety on his shelf, he talks about the number of SKUs on it. Each SKU is a different item in the computer, but may be VERY close to another product in actuality. Yellow Rubberbands vs Red Rubberbands, for instance.
Like it or not, sometimes the real world carries over into our little tech paradise and we have to understand their terms. Even worse, sometimes we start using them ourselves! Oh noes!
Oh really? Did you bother to look at the numbers of the old cards before you said that? The 7800GTX has 24 (!) shader units. That's better than 32 how?
Okay, the 8500 (the $100 model) only has 16. But how does that compare to the 7800GTX I paid $500 for? The $200 8600 has 32, and all the other specs are higher also.
It makes -no- sense to buy a 7800 once the 8500 and 8600 are released.
US-based telcos have a very, very long history of trying to squeeze their customers as hard as possible. The government frequently has to step in to and kick them until they let go. Even if a perfectly sane, nice, customer-oriented telco were to start up today, it would be treated with the same disrespect all the others have earned.
Telcos aren't alone in this, though... It's pretty much any utility.
If developers, even a few, thought they could make more money on Linux than Windows, or even turn a hefty enough profit by supporting both, they'd do it.
Thanks for companies like Introversion, Transgaming, and Codeweavers, and of course all the developers of Wine, Linux gaming is more popular than ever. Thanks to people like the folks behind Ogre3D, Newton, ODE, OpenAL, etc Cross-OS gaming is easier than ever.
I think this puts us right on the cusp of seeing a big change in Linux gaming. (And Mac OSX gaming, too.) But until then, Windows is -the- PC gaming OS and that's where hardware and software creators will be making their investments.
Now, I know the usual argument is that OpenGL is already cross-platform and should be supported. And I agree to a point... But ATI's OpenGL support has apparently always sucked, and you don't create a game that will suck for half the market if there's an easy alternative. (DirectX.) (Disclaimer: I have no first-hand experience with ATI cards. I've stuck with nVidia since Voodoo died.)
No, actually, he never said he had the number. He only said that there was 'evidence in their system' that he had dealt with them before.
Do you know what pretexting is? It's providing enough information to pretend you're someone or something you're not, like a valid customer. We have no idea what this 'evidence' is, but picking a support ticket number isn't all that hard if you've any idea what the format is. The 'evidence' was obviously not associated with his account, as the account information on the 'evidence' would be screwy-looking to the CSR, and they'd know there was a problem.
As I have previously paid $400 for a PDA that has a 3.8" screen and not nearly as much hardware behind it, I don't have any problem spending $400 for this device... Or even $600 or $800, if it's amazing enough.
I'd been considering the ModBook (Apple-based, third party tablet pc) at $2800, but I just don't have enough use for it. This would do most of what I'd want the ModBook to do, and at quite a lot lower price.
Nokia's stuff is interesting, but at only 320Mhz, it doesn't do what I want and isn't enough better than my current PDA to bother getting.
Um, yeah, actually, I -would- want to make sure the latest Ubuntu would run. Imagine that.
And why would it not have the drivers? If Midinux has the drivers, there's nothing stopping Ubuntu/Gentoo/DSL/etc from having them also.
Truth be told, it's not Ubuntu that I want, but Kubuntu. I like a lot of the stuff that KDE has like KIO slaves, and I like the attitude of the Ubuntu distro people. They have a tendency to run their distro like I'd want if I were there, and I tend to stick to it.
It's not 'the Slashdot crowd' anyhow, it's the entire human race that will never be truly happy. If we could be, we wouldn't be where we are today, and we certainly wouldn't continue striving for better all the time. If you aren't happy being part of the human race, maybe you should consider other options? (That's a joke, for all you idiots out there that don't have a sense of humor. You know who you are.)
I wonder how locked-down the device will be? Since it's using Linux, I hope they'd be smart enough to only lock it down enough that the non-tech consumers don't hurt themselves. I'd love to have a version of Ubuntu on it, instead of the Midinux that they've developed.
Truly, though, as long as I can write my own programs for it, I'd run whatever linux variant that I had to.
A 6" screen and dual-core 800Mhz? Very nice.
The bad part? "next year's release of the products." NOW. WANT NOW.
I think it depends largely upon how you approach the situation. If you SOUND like you are trying to scam them, they are going to assume you are.
If you say 'Givo, my box doesn't work. Why?' and they say you need an account and THEN you say 'I have an account. No really. Look it up. No I don't have the account number, or a billing stub, or...' They're going to mark you as 'scammer.'
If you call up with all that info in hand, and demand to know why your box stopped working, and that you can prove you paid your bill, it's a different story.
First-level tech support DOES NOT CARE if you are trying to scam them. They are only trying to make sure the boss doesn't yell at them. They aren't reponsible for actually sending out the parts, so as long as you sound like you are on the up-and-up, you'll be fine. These people are paid just over minimum wage for work that is actually way over their heads, and they are just trying to get through each call for 8 hours.
Second-level (or third, depending on how tiered the system is at that company) is the one where you may have to show proof to continue.
If you've got the receipt for Givo service in your hand, and can rattle off the account number, they're going to take you seriously. If you just keep saying 'I'm Rick James, bitch! Look it up!' then you'll get nowhere.
Slashdot Mirror
That setting doesn't affect POPping multiple times, but thanks anyhow.
It would award patents to people who first file for the patents, instead of those first to invent, it limits damages patent holders can collect in infringement lawsuits, and it creates a new procedure for those questioning the validity of a patent to challenge it after it's been granted. - FTFA
Right there.
A invents X.
B invents X.
C invents X.
C files for patent.
Under the current system, C can't have the patent because A and B have prior art. (Assuming the USPTO does its job.)
Under the proposed system, according to the article, C gets the patent and A and B are screwed.
This is, of course, assuming the article has ANY clue what is really in the proposed legislation.
You can argue that the USPTO is not doing its job all you want, but there's no evidence that it will start with new legislation. If the only 2 options are "make the USPTO do its job" and the new legislation, the former is a LOT better.
That's okay, they're not going to be nearly as bad as the 'Kubuntu is better' guys. ;) Which reminds me...
KUBUNTU! WHOO!
No, he merely said that he never ASSUMES it is. It might very well BE the best thing for the customer as well as the businessman. You've taken the point in reverse.
He's saying that the fact that M. Dell is using Ubuntu should not play a major factor into what distro Dell decides to ship to its customers. The opposite is not true... If he were to pick a distro AFTER the decision had been made, he may very well choose to use the same distro his company is shipping.
We don't know if that decision has been made, what it is, or why M. Dell chose Ubuntu. Making assumptions on any that is foolhardy at best. But then, that's what journalism means today. Making half-assed assumptions and printing them as fact. When you're wrong, you just write the retraction in tiny print on the billionth page.
Wait, wasn't that on an episode of Numb3rs? Are you getting reality and TV confused? Or am I...? -ponder-
The process also totally ignores environmental factors and random chance.
I'm not arguing that Da Vinci wasn't brilliant. But in today's society, would he even be noticed? We have more geniuses than ever, and as such, they are less noteworthy than ever. In Da Vinci's time, it was dangerous and difficult to be a genius. Being different was a lot harder back then, and if you should come up with an idea that was against the local religion, you would probably die. Now if you go against the grain, you merely get screamed at, screamed with, and get a lot of publicity. Not necessarily in that order.
As long as we're advocating aliases, don't forget about spamgourmet.com. I used it for years before switching to GMail's servers. GMail's spam catching is so good that I don't worry anymore, but before that... Nightmare.
For those that don't know: Spamgourmet lets you have unlimited aliases, so you just create a new alias for every site you put your email address on. The creation is automatic (happens the first time that email addy is mailed to) and if you later decide it's sending spam, you can turn it off completely. (It's actually got a lot more features than that, but that's the basics.)
Oh, and it's free.
And appears to be done right now... Hmm... Maybe not such a good choice then. Bleh.
Yeah, but it's a shitty implementation. For instance, it doesn't allow you to set 'leave mail on server' even though GMail keeps the mail anyhow. This means that you can't POP from 2 mail clients (home, work, blackberry, etc) because once you pop the mail once, it won't pop to the other client. No matter what you do.
;)
We switched to GMail here at work and that's been the biggest problem it. I've taken to just using the web mail client for my account, just as if there was no pop access at all.
Yes, I used POP as a verb. It's easy and short and cute.
Why oh why do I have too much money and not powerful enough products!? -cries-
No seriously. Some of us find the product to match the price. I have a $400 PDA that doesn't do nearly what this does. That puts this definitely in the 'nice' price range.
I think you meant 'DOS attack', but it was more like a self-slashdotting.
As for people... Combine laziness and hatred and you end up with a gajillion people that will wait until the last possible second to deal with it. It shouldn't be a real big surprise.
I guess you're going to just keep posting that same comment over and over and over until you get modded up on it, eh?
That's okay, my BOSSES have been having issues with their Crackberries. And yes, I get to keep explaining that our email servers are perfectly fine.
That's funny, maybe you should tell them...
6 22251
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/15/1
Bragging rights. And the tech demos were fun for about 5 minutes.
Notice I'm not defending my purchase at all. I was only marginally impressed with that card over my previous $150 card. That's not a real good feeling, I can tell ya. I'll probably be buying one of the $200 8600's shortly after they come out. And only that because I'm going to be putting together a new system.
You apparently haven't worked retail.
Yes, it's a Stock Keeping Unit. When a manager wants to talk about the variety on his shelf, he talks about the number of SKUs on it. Each SKU is a different item in the computer, but may be VERY close to another product in actuality. Yellow Rubberbands vs Red Rubberbands, for instance.
Like it or not, sometimes the real world carries over into our little tech paradise and we have to understand their terms. Even worse, sometimes we start using them ourselves! Oh noes!
Oh really? Did you bother to look at the numbers of the old cards before you said that? The 7800GTX has 24 (!) shader units. That's better than 32 how?
e .asp?article=articles/archive/c0508/12c08/12c08.as p&guid=
From: http://www.computerpoweruser.com/editorial/articl
Okay, the 8500 (the $100 model) only has 16. But how does that compare to the 7800GTX I paid $500 for? The $200 8600 has 32, and all the other specs are higher also.
It makes -no- sense to buy a 7800 once the 8500 and 8600 are released.
US-based telcos have a very, very long history of trying to squeeze their customers as hard as possible. The government frequently has to step in to and kick them until they let go. Even if a perfectly sane, nice, customer-oriented telco were to start up today, it would be treated with the same disrespect all the others have earned.
Telcos aren't alone in this, though... It's pretty much any utility.
Jeez, that's a silly question.
Because that's where the money is.
If developers, even a few, thought they could make more money on Linux than Windows, or even turn a hefty enough profit by supporting both, they'd do it.
Thanks for companies like Introversion, Transgaming, and Codeweavers, and of course all the developers of Wine, Linux gaming is more popular than ever. Thanks to people like the folks behind Ogre3D, Newton, ODE, OpenAL, etc Cross-OS gaming is easier than ever.
I think this puts us right on the cusp of seeing a big change in Linux gaming. (And Mac OSX gaming, too.) But until then, Windows is -the- PC gaming OS and that's where hardware and software creators will be making their investments.
Now, I know the usual argument is that OpenGL is already cross-platform and should be supported. And I agree to a point... But ATI's OpenGL support has apparently always sucked, and you don't create a game that will suck for half the market if there's an easy alternative. (DirectX.) (Disclaimer: I have no first-hand experience with ATI cards. I've stuck with nVidia since Voodoo died.)
It always ruins a joke to explain it. -sigh-
It's a quote from their own commercials. It's sung in the background to a silly tune while people do amaaaazingly stupid things.
It's more than appropriate, it might even be prophetic.
No, actually, he never said he had the number. He only said that there was 'evidence in their system' that he had dealt with them before.
Do you know what pretexting is? It's providing enough information to pretend you're someone or something you're not, like a valid customer. We have no idea what this 'evidence' is, but picking a support ticket number isn't all that hard if you've any idea what the format is. The 'evidence' was obviously not associated with his account, as the account information on the 'evidence' would be screwy-looking to the CSR, and they'd know there was a problem.
As I have previously paid $400 for a PDA that has a 3.8" screen and not nearly as much hardware behind it, I don't have any problem spending $400 for this device... Or even $600 or $800, if it's amazing enough.
I'd been considering the ModBook (Apple-based, third party tablet pc) at $2800, but I just don't have enough use for it. This would do most of what I'd want the ModBook to do, and at quite a lot lower price.
Nokia's stuff is interesting, but at only 320Mhz, it doesn't do what I want and isn't enough better than my current PDA to bother getting.
It still won't help if they've lost your account information, as in the post. ;)
Um, yeah, actually, I -would- want to make sure the latest Ubuntu would run. Imagine that.
And why would it not have the drivers? If Midinux has the drivers, there's nothing stopping Ubuntu/Gentoo/DSL/etc from having them also.
Truth be told, it's not Ubuntu that I want, but Kubuntu. I like a lot of the stuff that KDE has like KIO slaves, and I like the attitude of the Ubuntu distro people. They have a tendency to run their distro like I'd want if I were there, and I tend to stick to it.
It's not 'the Slashdot crowd' anyhow, it's the entire human race that will never be truly happy. If we could be, we wouldn't be where we are today, and we certainly wouldn't continue striving for better all the time. If you aren't happy being part of the human race, maybe you should consider other options? (That's a joke, for all you idiots out there that don't have a sense of humor. You know who you are.)
I wonder how locked-down the device will be? Since it's using Linux, I hope they'd be smart enough to only lock it down enough that the non-tech consumers don't hurt themselves. I'd love to have a version of Ubuntu on it, instead of the Midinux that they've developed.
Truly, though, as long as I can write my own programs for it, I'd run whatever linux variant that I had to.
A 6" screen and dual-core 800Mhz? Very nice.
The bad part? "next year's release of the products." NOW. WANT NOW.
I think it depends largely upon how you approach the situation. If you SOUND like you are trying to scam them, they are going to assume you are.
If you say 'Givo, my box doesn't work. Why?' and they say you need an account and THEN you say 'I have an account. No really. Look it up. No I don't have the account number, or a billing stub, or...' They're going to mark you as 'scammer.'
If you call up with all that info in hand, and demand to know why your box stopped working, and that you can prove you paid your bill, it's a different story.
First-level tech support DOES NOT CARE if you are trying to scam them. They are only trying to make sure the boss doesn't yell at them. They aren't reponsible for actually sending out the parts, so as long as you sound like you are on the up-and-up, you'll be fine. These people are paid just over minimum wage for work that is actually way over their heads, and they are just trying to get through each call for 8 hours.
Second-level (or third, depending on how tiered the system is at that company) is the one where you may have to show proof to continue.
If you've got the receipt for Givo service in your hand, and can rattle off the account number, they're going to take you seriously. If you just keep saying 'I'm Rick James, bitch! Look it up!' then you'll get nowhere.