What I will never understand is why most people who are against those invasions of privacy have no problem with the government interfering with their lives in other ways - for instance, by outlawing a specific kind of lightbulb. They're both restrictions placed on your freedom.
The potential ban on incandescents "restricts our freedom" about as much as previous government edicts that required cars to have catalytic converters, or to use unleaded gasoline.
This isn't remotely on the same level as gay marriage or warrantless wiretaps, and it isn't even a 'death by a thousand cuts', its simply progress, albeit perhaps the timing is a bit too soon.
Frankly the only reason this isn't a COMPLETE NON-ISSUE is because the cost & performance characteristics of incandescents haven't been adequately matched by the more energy efficient alternatives.
And hopefully that's simply because there hasn't been adequate demand in the market for inexpensive dimmer capable alternatives with better spectrum characteristics. Granted that regulation creates "artificial" demand, but so what; I believe we'd still have leaded gasoline if we relied soley on market dynamics.
Of course it should be possible to network that machine to the XP box.
The network stack for dos has been available free from Microsoft for years.
Basic Netbios & IPX/SPX are pretty easy to setup. (Surely I wasn't the only one to play Doom and Duke Nukem 3D on a LAN.)
TCP/IP is also doable but is quite a memory hog; you'll definately want to setup a custom boot sequence to boot with or without network support.
I'm not sure how well DOS networking plays with domains, and active directory; it *used* to work against NT server 3 and 4, but I've never tried against 2K or 2K3. (I've networked DOS 6.22 to Windows 2000 server, but not in a domain configuration.)
You can run a DOS file server as well, but that eats even more memory. Other than that I found that there were occasional stability issues in some cases when doing large file transfers (large, lmao, ok ok...transfers in the 10's of megabytes).
this will die because there is a huge amount of precident in prohibiting companies from being sued when their products were used in the commission of crimes
You seem to have forgotten that all the "precedent prohibiting companies from being sued when their products were used in the commission of crimes" wasn't enough to stop the RIAA from *successfully* suing p2p companies.
Or what about the lawsuits against the likes of youtube and myspace?
Walmart, unlike the RIAA/MPAA is NOT in any danger whatsoever.
Walmart, worst case, will just stop selling movies if (when?) the 'digital download thing' takes off and surpasses retail sales. Big flipping deal. What' the real issue here? Walmart frees up a few hundred square feet in a 100,000 sq foot store which they can fill with:
Q-tips, Toothpicks, Bathroom scales, Can-openers, Kids shoes, String, Universal Remote Controls, Watering Cans, Aspirin, Spoons, USB cable, Coca-Cola, Ker-Plunk, Pregnancy Test Kits, Bicycles, and ten billion other items that will never be delivered as digital downloads...
If you're speeding then don't say you weren't, and the black box won't be used against you.
Gotcha... tell them you were speeding up front so they don't even have to look at the black box before assigning you some fault. (And perhaps writing you a speeding ticket; after all you confessed.)
The parent clearly said he was a safe driver.
What exactly does that mean? He never speeds?
What's safer: driving 5mph above the speed limit with traffic, or driving 5mph below* the speed limit (and thus 12+mph below the average speed of traffic)?
Hint: driving with traffic, unless it is driving inappropriately fast is safer.
* you'd have to drive around 5mph below to ensure that you never speed. If you tried to drive right at the speed limit you would still vary 2 or 3 mph due to grades, turns, traffic, etc. So to ensure you "never speed" you actually have to set your target a few mph below the limit. And doing 52-58 in a 60 when traffic is running at 65-70 *is* hazardous.
If you are lucky enough to have an accident at such a light I guess.
Despite the depictions in some movies and CSI, most traffic lights are still operating on fixed patterns and/or are basic sensor driven finite state machines. Centrally controlled / monitored systems are several orders of magnitude more expensive and generally only exist in downtown cores of the biggest cities.
The blackbox in the idiot's car would indicate his reckless driving.
What if it turns out HIS blackbox shows him driving straight and normal at the speedlimit. (sure he still ran a red light and t-boned you... but the blackbox shows nothing strange)... and YOUR blackbox shows you driving 2km over the limit with a recent swerves when you dodged a few pieces of debris on the road.
Sure he ran the red light, but your own blackbox paints an unflattering picture of your driving.
Its a knife that cuts both ways. Some times it will cut both ways at once; sure it might identify the other driver as a weaving/hard braking idiot -- but what if it also shows you were going slightly over the speed limit or had done some recent swerving around? Your insurance company might still nail you with higher rates or reduce their coverage.
Try going back 100 years where you couldnt do it at all.
If traveling is part of the business you chose to be in then deal with what it comes with. Or are you one of these people that deserves everything to go your way in life.
Jackass.
If someone took 10-20 hours your productive time per week I'm sure you would just suck it up. Maybe you commute? How would you like to have an extra 4 hours added to your commute because you now have to undergo a 2 hour security clearing process before entering or leaving your school or office building?
Would you find that a major inconvenience worth complaining about or would you just say,
"Cavemen had to walk and even with a 4 hour delay I'm ahead of the cavemen, besides I'm not one of those whiny people that deserve everything to go my way in life, I'm more like one of those people who deserves to be treated like a criminal and anally probed for 2 hours on a daily basis."
The fact is production cars were around for 50+years before the intermittent windshield wiper was invented, so now how are you going to explain that invention was so obvious?
There is a difference between: "No one had thought to ask specifically for intermittent wipers." And "Intermittent wipers were hard to figure out and no one had solved the problem of how to make them."
If he were close to anyone under 25, he wouldn't be using this device, as it would be as likely to keep them away as the brats he's trying to drive away.
Or maybe he'd just turn it off when they came over and complained about it.
It doesn't prove the point at all. We were talking about the cost of patent searches. If you really felt tucking your jug of milk under your shirt was innovative and worthwhile then the first step of checking whether it had been patented the cost is very low (just your time, maybe you'd quickly find out in 5 minutes, maybe after 8 hours you still hadn't found anything on your "method" of tucking).
You went the wrong way, that I thought I might want to commericalize the idea, go the other way as it proves my point exactly. What if I *didn't* think tucking the jug of milk under my shirt was innovative? What if I thought it was completely obvious?
Yet if some else had patented it I could be liable for infringement. And you are saying I have to spend 5 minutes to 8 hours or more searching patents on things I think are obvious just to mitigate the risk of infringement.
It is a ridiculous system.
Similar to the guy that invented intermittent windshield wipers way back in the 70's, the car manufacturers took his idea didn't license it and just copied it and didn't have to pay for over 20 years. Do you think his business model should have been to try to build the first car with intermittent wipers, or to license it to the car manufacturers.
Because hooking up a high delay turn signal blinker to the wiper control switch is worth millions. The idea was a good one, and I'm glad he had it, but I'm unconvinced it merits a patent, or that it should be ANYONES meal ticket for life.
Or that the fact that he had it means nobody else is allowed to.
NTP patents did benefit society with their open disclosure of how to enable the invention.
That's pure speculation.
Simply publishing a patent doesn't benefit society if no one read it, or if they read it but failed to understand its implications or relevance, or found it totally useless in actually developing a product.
With respect to copyright: When I write a piece of code from scratch, its mine I own it and can do whatever i want with it. When I use a piece of GPL code to derive a new product I must release my source under the GPL. That's the 'fairness' of GPL. If I use a piece of proprietary code in my new product I must license or arrange terms with the rights holder. That is also fair.
Yet with patents, when I write a piece of code on my own, and then sell it in another country where someone else I've never heard of wrote a paper describing how a piece of software that solves some of the same problems in the same way as mine does, without the other party even actually writing the software to do it I have pay THEM for permission to sell MY brainchild, as if I somehow used their work.
If I had used their work than yeah I should pay, if I didn't I really shouldn't have to pay them.
Maybe RIM did use NTPs patent to build their product, and maybe they didn't. But even if RIM could somehow PROVE they didn't ever see the patent they would still have to pay NTP.
I find it offensive that it simply doesn't matter whether RIM used their patent or not to develop their product. They are guilty of infringing the patent regardless of how they came to their product design.
Do you walk of the grocery store with a jug of milk tucked under your shirt too?
Why? Does someone have a patent on that method of transporting milk?
Assuming I've paid for the milk I should think I should be allowed to walk out of the grocery store with it however I might dream up. On hot days I've seriously considered this method of transporting cold products. Until just now its never occured to me that someone else might have had this idea, patented it, and might be waiting behind my car to mug me for licensing fees...
Yes I know I'm being facetious, but i think it humorously illustrates my point.
NTP vs RIM is a prime example of the little guy winning. NTP was first to invent and won.
What exactly did NTP invent though? Have you seen any NTP products? Was NTP aggressivly marketing their technology, courting manufacturers, and potential licensees? They were just a patent holding company. So what "invention" exactly did RIM take and copy? Do you even think RIM, a Canadian company had heard of NTP or its patent before developing their product?
"Ignorance is no excuse" sidesteps the real question... WHY should it even matter that NTP is holding rights to an idea they weren't developing and which RIM likely hadn't never seen. WHY should NTP get 100,000,000 or even 100 dollars from RIM. What did NTP do to create the product? How does that promote innovation? How does that benefit society?
However, would you not admit that the risks of innovating and releasing a product into the world without patent protection (and vulture competitors) is greater than releasing same product with patent protection?
risk of what exactly? Risk of vulture competitors duplicating your product and undercutting you? Higher. Risk of vulture competitors suing you for patent infringement? Lower.
Where do you see this "drag on further innovation"?? Some of the patents I see coming out are pretty exciting glimpse into the near future.
I see this drag on further innovation everywhere I look.
I see NTP suing RIM for "wireless email" and winning 100,000,000... that's enough to fund a lot of innovation.
I see SCO suing IBM, and even though its looking like a loss for SCO the litigation itself has cost IBM millions, much of which will not be recovered even if IBM wins all its counter suits.
I see some nitwit organization that owned a patent on "scanning a barcode" bilk barcode hardware/software vendors for millions.
I see Test.com patent the idea of taking tests over the internet. I see amazon.co patenting trivial business processes "done over the internet". I see microsoft patenting xml de/serialization. All of these bogus patents stifle innovation directly as companies fear to release products and stifle innovation indirectly as the cost of fighting bogus patents drains funds that could have been used in new research etc.
I see patents filed and then ignored. The intent was simply to prevent someone else from making it for the life of the patent. Clearly that stifles innovation.
I see patent war chests being built to wage patent cold-wars between companies, while ensuring small groups are at a serious disadvantage to get off the ground. There's going to be something in those war chests they can litigate on... and win or lose the startup may go broke defending itself.
I see companies enforcing vender lock-in with patents, creating proprietary connections, protocols, and so forth that serve no other purpose than to prevent another company from innovating. (be it a 3rd party releasing a better xbox controller or an ink company releasing cheaper ink cartridges...
For what its worth, I think patents have been a positive influence, but over the last twenty years, and going forward I think their collective harm is starting to counter balance the good. I think we're fast approaching a point where the harm outweighs the good.
U.S. have had patents for at least a couple hundred years and guess who have been some of the most innovative people?
Yeah, but was it the patents or an simply the result of a nation that had high literacy, lots of wealth per capita... oh and for the last 60+ years a massive research budget funded directly by the taxpayer via a vast military industrial complex?
Suffice it to say that I think saying it was "all thanks to the patents" might be overlooking something.:)
Ok I'll call you on your argument/bluff that the open source world is the place where innovations happen.
I never actually claimed that. I brought up OSS only to demonstrate that people can make money at producing something the competition can copy for free.
Name some important innovations that even come close to some of the patented world innovations in software: RSA algorithm, Netscape SSL, Google PageRanking, SecurId.
The question isn't whether innovations have sprung from OSS, its whether they could/would in the absence of a "proprietary/patented" world.
In a world without patents, there would still be demand for innovation, and there would still be customers willing to pay for it. The market (ie creative individuals within it) would find models for innovating and getting paid for it.
We had innovation before we had patents.
Patents may help stimulate innovation, but they aren't a prerequisite, and "too many patents" are demonstrably now acting as a drag on further innovation. Whether that drag now exceeds the stimulus is an open question, but there should be no question that innovation will continue to occur without patents. If the drag is now exceeding the stimulus then innovation could even accelerate if they were removed entirely.
If all of that work and expense could be done by one company, and any other company could snap it up w/o having to invest in that research, then who in their right mind would invest 10's or 100's of millions of dollars into producing a product when that basically means they're giving it to their competetors for free?
Perhaps you should ask IBM or Novell about the money they're putting into Linux?
The point I'm making is not that big-pharma could necessarily emulate the OSS model, but rather that its ridiculous to assume that innovation and the advance of technology would suddenly collapse if patents were removed. Frankly I give the free-market a little more credit than that. There *will* be a way of making money in such an environment, and the free market *will* find it.
It may turn out to be even MORE effective than what we have now; after all, big-pharma is not really even in the business of curing people. No real money in making someone healthy. When the product is drugs the business model would rather find a pill that activated an aids victim's immune system that would need to be taken every 8 hours than an actual cure.
This is EXACTLY how to deal with this problem. Everybody pretend it isn't working, and he'll return it to the manufacturer, which will tell him that it is indeed working, and will hopefully redirect his rage toward the manufacturer.
Yeah, cuz there's no way this guy will be able to find someone under 25 he trusts. I mean he surely won't have any kids or grandkids or nieces or nephews...
And then his paranoia WILL be justified; the whole town is somehow out to get him...
This is dumber than just breaking the device.
The smart thing to do has been covered countless times:
Step 0: Act like mature responsible adults. You want to be taken seriously you've got to look and act the part. This isn't the time to look like your on your way to a Rob Zombie concert. Its not enough that you are legally right; you want them to care about your issue not force them to go through the motions.
1) Talk to the guy and sincerely try to resolve the problem. 2) Write him a polite letter. (keep copies) 3) Approach both police and city/municipal government with pics of device, documentation about device, copy of letter, and a list of witnesses with contact information who will attest to the problem. Preferably have someone older who can hear it do this. Ideally a home-owning parent with young kids. You really shouldn't have any issues getting action done if an entire neighborhood is truly suffering from this. 4) If all that fails you might also try contacting local media with the story as well. If they cover it, it will goad reticent police or municipal government to act.
Man, I hate it when I make potential errors. How does VS deal with virtual errors?
Potential errors = errors that could/would have happened but didn't. I'm not sure what your "virtual errors" would be.
VS eliminates a lot of potential errors... for example: I often forget whether the spelling of the css 'built in color' is "grey" or "gray"; Iirc firefox accepts both, while IE only understands gray. My natural inclination is to spell 'grey', but the standard specifies 'gray'. VS code completion helps prevent me from using 'grey'.
By popping up the list of colors as i type, the odds of me getting it wrong is reduced. And a potential error is avoided.
Simililarly, it also helps ensure that the elements of a 'background:' are ordered correctly, as in some cases some browsers ignore them if they aren't in the right order.
By showing me the syntax as I type, the potential for me to put them in the wrong order is greatly reduced. And a potential error is avoided.
Don't even get me started on the watering-down of "puzzles" in modern games.... Plover's egg emeralds hidden beyond a crack your lamp doesn't fit through? Try THAT on for size!
"google plover's egg emeralds"
Within 4 clicks I had a walkthru that told me exactly how to do it.
The internet ruined those kind of puzzle games, because almost nobody is going to spend weeks trying to figure something out when they KNOW the answer is sitting within arms reach.
At least jumping obstacle reflex puzzles require some semblance of dexterity to solve.
The internet fundamentally changed the dynamics of these games. Many (most?) players find it difficult to ignore that the answers to all their questions are within arms reach.
Visual Studio actually has a pretty solid source code editor, with good syntax highlighting, and its code completion for css properties and html attributes is very good. (And its ability to offer effortless code completion for asp tags, AND user-defined controls is extremely helpful.) Not to mention its real-time "error" checking (improper tag nesting, mismatched tags, etc). It prevents and catches a lot of potential errors as you make them.
I do agree that doing a lot of work in the gui-designer results in bloated pages that need a ton of work to slim down and make crossplatform friendly. But nobody is forcing you to do that, and really if you know what you are doing you almost never use the visual designer mode. I only use it to drag user-controls onto the page; because in gui-mode it handles the boilerplate to register the tagprefix, etc. I also occasionally use it to create event handlers, because double clicking say a linkbutton in design view will write the boilerplate for the function signature, as well as handle the event wiring.
Like any tool, Visual Studio can be used effectively or ineffectively. When compared to most other "light tools" I find Visual Studio to be more productive -- sure I can build pages even in notepad but I make fewer typos when using the source code editor in Visual studio.
(There are other good editors too, don't get me wrong. I'm just saying that visual studio belongs among them.)
I've never really underderstood Transgaming's focus on cross platform gaming. Most Linux and Mac users aren't heavy gamers. Most people tend to use Windows or consoles for gaming. If you're using OS X or Linux it's generally to get something (real work) done.
In fact I can't understand why any business would focus on an obvious niche that any one can see represents a minority of the population. Be it something like exotic cooling solutions for nvidia gpus, left handed golf clubs, spinners to stick on your rims, gaming on the mac,... when its plain as day that your just limiting your potential sales.
I say businesses should focus only on things *everybody* needs... like pants. Or Duct tape. Or pr0n.
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What I will never understand is why most people who are against those invasions of privacy have no problem with the government interfering with their lives in other ways - for instance, by outlawing a specific kind of lightbulb. They're both restrictions placed on your freedom.
The potential ban on incandescents "restricts our freedom" about as much as previous government edicts that required cars to have catalytic converters, or to use unleaded gasoline.
This isn't remotely on the same level as gay marriage or warrantless wiretaps, and it isn't even a 'death by a thousand cuts', its simply progress, albeit perhaps the timing is a bit too soon.
Frankly the only reason this isn't a COMPLETE NON-ISSUE is because the cost & performance characteristics of incandescents haven't been adequately matched by the more energy efficient alternatives.
And hopefully that's simply because there hasn't been adequate demand in the market for inexpensive dimmer capable alternatives with better spectrum characteristics. Granted that regulation creates "artificial" demand, but so what; I believe we'd still have leaded gasoline if we relied soley on market dynamics.
Of course it should be possible to network that machine to the XP box.
The network stack for dos has been available free from Microsoft for years.
Basic Netbios & IPX/SPX are pretty easy to setup. (Surely I wasn't the only one to play Doom and Duke Nukem 3D on a LAN.)
TCP/IP is also doable but is quite a memory hog; you'll definately want to setup a custom boot sequence to boot with or without network support.
I'm not sure how well DOS networking plays with domains, and active directory; it *used* to work against NT server 3 and 4, but I've never tried against 2K or 2K3. (I've networked DOS 6.22 to Windows 2000 server, but not in a domain configuration.)
You can run a DOS file server as well, but that eats even more memory. Other than that I found that there were occasional stability issues in some cases when doing large file transfers (large, lmao, ok ok...transfers in the 10's of megabytes).
cheers,
If I put up a webpage, and put copyrighted material on it, I'm breaking the law.
Absolutely. Since *YOU* did it you should be liable. Not myspace.
this will die because there is a huge amount of precident in prohibiting companies from being sued when their products were used in the commission of crimes
You seem to have forgotten that all the "precedent prohibiting companies from being sued when their products were used in the commission of crimes" wasn't enough to stop the RIAA from *successfully* suing p2p companies.
Or what about the lawsuits against the likes of youtube and myspace?
Walmart, unlike the RIAA/MPAA is NOT in any danger whatsoever.
Walmart, worst case, will just stop selling movies if (when?) the 'digital download thing' takes off and surpasses retail sales. Big flipping deal. What' the real issue here? Walmart frees up a few hundred square feet in a 100,000 sq foot store which they can fill with:
Q-tips, Toothpicks, Bathroom scales, Can-openers, Kids shoes, String, Universal Remote Controls, Watering Cans, Aspirin, Spoons, USB cable, Coca-Cola, Ker-Plunk, Pregnancy Test Kits, Bicycles, and ten billion other items that will never be delivered as digital downloads...
If you're speeding then don't say you weren't, and the black box won't be used against you.
Gotcha... tell them you were speeding up front so they don't even have to look at the black box before assigning you some fault. (And perhaps writing you a speeding ticket; after all you confessed.)
The parent clearly said he was a safe driver.
What exactly does that mean? He never speeds?
What's safer: driving 5mph above the speed limit with traffic, or driving 5mph below* the speed limit (and thus 12+mph below the average speed of traffic)?
Hint: driving with traffic, unless it is driving inappropriately fast is safer.
* you'd have to drive around 5mph below to ensure that you never speed. If you tried to drive right at the speed limit you would still vary 2 or 3 mph due to grades, turns, traffic, etc. So to ensure you "never speed" you actually have to set your target a few mph below the limit. And doing 52-58 in a 60 when traffic is running at 65-70 *is* hazardous.
the computers that run the traffic system
If you are lucky enough to have an accident at such a light I guess.
Despite the depictions in some movies and CSI, most traffic lights are still operating on fixed patterns and/or are basic sensor driven finite state machines. Centrally controlled / monitored systems are several orders of magnitude more expensive and generally only exist in downtown cores of the biggest cities.
No, you missed the GP post's point.
And you missed the counter-argument's point.
The blackbox in the idiot's car would indicate his reckless driving.
What if it turns out HIS blackbox shows him driving straight and normal at the speedlimit. (sure he still ran a red light and t-boned you... but the blackbox shows nothing strange)... and YOUR blackbox shows you driving 2km over the limit with a recent swerves when you dodged a few pieces of debris on the road.
Sure he ran the red light, but your own blackbox paints an unflattering picture of your driving.
Its a knife that cuts both ways. Some times it will cut both ways at once; sure it might identify the other driver as a weaving/hard braking idiot -- but what if it also shows you were going slightly over the speed limit or had done some recent swerving around? Your insurance company might still nail you with higher rates or reduce their coverage.
Try going back 100 years where you couldnt do it at all.
If traveling is part of the business you chose to be in then deal with what it comes with. Or are you one of these people that deserves everything to go your way in life.
Jackass.
If someone took 10-20 hours your productive time per week I'm sure you would just suck it up. Maybe you commute? How would you like to have an extra 4 hours added to your commute because you now have to undergo a 2 hour security clearing process before entering or leaving your school or office building?
Would you find that a major inconvenience worth complaining about or would you just say,
"Cavemen had to walk and even with a 4 hour delay I'm ahead of the cavemen, besides I'm not one of those whiny people that deserve everything to go my way in life, I'm more like one of those people who deserves to be treated like a criminal and anally probed for 2 hours on a daily basis."
??
You know it when you see it.
Sometimes you do, but often you don't.
The fact is production cars were around for 50+years before the intermittent windshield wiper was invented, so now how are you going to explain that invention was so obvious?
There is a difference between: "No one had thought to ask specifically for intermittent wipers." And "Intermittent wipers were hard to figure out and no one had solved the problem of how to make them."
If he were close to anyone under 25, he wouldn't be using this device, as it would be as likely to keep them away as the brats he's trying to drive away.
Or maybe he'd just turn it off when they came over and complained about it.
I want an imac in a mac pro form factor. So I have the option of dropping a 2nd hard drive in, upgrading the video card, running dual lcds, etc.
I think I represent a fairly large group of people. The mini is too entry level, the imac to limiting, and the mac pro is cpu overkill.
There should be a Mac Pro with one Xeon, or perhaps even a non-Xeon. That would pretty much drop the price enough to put it where it would need to be.
mod parent up.
Count me in as a consumer falling smack dab in the middle of that that gap.
It doesn't prove the point at all. We were talking about the cost of patent searches. If you really felt tucking your jug of milk under your shirt was innovative and worthwhile then the first step of checking whether it had been patented the cost is very low (just your time, maybe you'd quickly find out in 5 minutes, maybe after 8 hours you still hadn't found anything on your "method" of tucking).
You went the wrong way, that I thought I might want to commericalize the idea, go the other way as it proves my point exactly. What if I *didn't* think tucking the jug of milk under my shirt was innovative? What if I thought it was completely obvious?
Yet if some else had patented it I could be liable for infringement. And you are saying I have to spend 5 minutes to 8 hours or more searching patents on things I think are obvious just to mitigate the risk of infringement.
It is a ridiculous system.
Similar to the guy that invented intermittent windshield wipers way back in the 70's, the car manufacturers took his idea didn't license it and just copied it and didn't have to pay for over 20 years. Do you think his business model should have been to try to build the first car with intermittent wipers, or to license it to the car manufacturers.
Because hooking up a high delay turn signal blinker to the wiper control switch is worth millions. The idea was a good one, and I'm glad he had it, but I'm unconvinced it merits a patent, or that it should be ANYONES meal ticket for life.
Or that the fact that he had it means nobody else is allowed to.
NTP patents did benefit society with their open disclosure of how to enable the invention.
That's pure speculation.
Simply publishing a patent doesn't benefit society if no one read it, or if they read it but failed to understand its implications or relevance, or found it totally useless in actually developing a product.
With respect to copyright: When I write a piece of code from scratch, its mine I own it and can do whatever i want with it. When I use a piece of GPL code to derive a new product I must release my source under the GPL. That's the 'fairness' of GPL. If I use a piece of proprietary code in my new product I must license or arrange terms with the rights holder. That is also fair.
Yet with patents, when I write a piece of code on my own, and then sell it in another country where someone else I've never heard of wrote a paper describing how a piece of software that solves some of the same problems in the same way as mine does, without the other party even actually writing the software to do it I have pay THEM for permission to sell MY brainchild, as if I somehow used their work.
If I had used their work than yeah I should pay, if I didn't I really shouldn't have to pay them.
Maybe RIM did use NTPs patent to build their product, and maybe they didn't. But even if RIM could somehow PROVE they didn't ever see the patent they would still have to pay NTP.
I find it offensive that it simply doesn't matter whether RIM used their patent or not to develop their product. They are guilty of infringing the patent regardless of how they came to their product design.
You still have yet to justify why that should be.
Do you walk of the grocery store with a jug of milk tucked under your shirt too?
Why? Does someone have a patent on that method of transporting milk?
Assuming I've paid for the milk I should think I should be allowed to walk out of the grocery store with it however I might dream up. On hot days I've seriously considered this method of transporting cold products. Until just now its never occured to me that someone else might have had this idea, patented it, and might be waiting behind my car to mug me for licensing fees...
Yes I know I'm being facetious, but i think it humorously illustrates my point.
NTP vs RIM is a prime example of the little guy winning. NTP was first to invent and won.
What exactly did NTP invent though? Have you seen any NTP products? Was NTP aggressivly marketing their technology, courting manufacturers, and potential licensees? They were just a patent holding company. So what "invention" exactly did RIM take and copy? Do you even think RIM, a Canadian company had heard of NTP or its patent before developing their product?
"Ignorance is no excuse" sidesteps the real question... WHY should it even matter that NTP is holding rights to an idea they weren't developing and which RIM likely hadn't never seen. WHY should NTP get 100,000,000 or even 100 dollars from RIM. What did NTP do to create the product? How does that promote innovation? How does that benefit society?
However, would you not admit that the risks of innovating and releasing a product into the world without patent protection (and vulture competitors) is greater than releasing same product with patent protection?
:)
risk of what exactly?
Risk of vulture competitors duplicating your product and undercutting you? Higher.
Risk of vulture competitors suing you for patent infringement? Lower.
Where do you see this "drag on further innovation"?? Some of the patents I see coming out are pretty exciting glimpse into the near future.
I see this drag on further innovation everywhere I look.
I see NTP suing RIM for "wireless email" and winning 100,000,000... that's enough to fund a lot of innovation.
I see SCO suing IBM, and even though its looking like a loss for SCO the litigation itself has cost IBM millions, much of which will not be recovered even if IBM wins all its counter suits.
I see some nitwit organization that owned a patent on "scanning a barcode" bilk barcode hardware/software vendors for millions.
I see Test.com patent the idea of taking tests over the internet. I see amazon.co patenting trivial business processes "done over the internet". I see microsoft patenting xml de/serialization. All of these bogus patents stifle innovation directly as companies fear to release products and stifle innovation indirectly as the cost of fighting bogus patents drains funds that could have been used in new research etc.
I see patents filed and then ignored. The intent was simply to prevent someone else from making it for the life of the patent. Clearly that stifles innovation.
I see patent war chests being built to wage patent cold-wars between companies, while ensuring small groups are at a serious disadvantage to get off the ground. There's going to be something in those war chests they can litigate on... and win or lose the startup may go broke defending itself.
I see companies enforcing vender lock-in with patents, creating proprietary connections, protocols, and so forth that serve no other purpose than to prevent another company from innovating. (be it a 3rd party releasing a better xbox controller or an ink company releasing cheaper ink cartridges...
For what its worth, I think patents have been a positive influence, but over the last twenty years, and going forward I think their collective harm is starting to counter balance the good. I think we're fast approaching a point where the harm outweighs the good.
U.S. have had patents for at least a couple hundred years and guess who have been some of the most innovative people?
Yeah, but was it the patents or an simply the result of a nation that had high literacy, lots of wealth per capita... oh and for the last 60+ years a massive research budget funded directly by the taxpayer via a vast military industrial complex?
Suffice it to say that I think saying it was "all thanks to the patents" might be overlooking something.
Ok I'll call you on your argument/bluff that the open source world is the place where innovations happen.
I never actually claimed that. I brought up OSS only to demonstrate that people can make money at producing something the competition can copy for free.
Name some important innovations that even come close to some of the patented world innovations in software: RSA algorithm, Netscape SSL, Google PageRanking, SecurId.
The question isn't whether innovations have sprung from OSS, its whether they could/would in the absence of a "proprietary/patented" world.
In a world without patents, there would still be demand for innovation, and there would still be customers willing to pay for it. The market (ie creative individuals within it) would find models for innovating and getting paid for it.
We had innovation before we had patents.
Patents may help stimulate innovation, but they aren't a prerequisite, and "too many patents" are demonstrably now acting as a drag on further innovation. Whether that drag now exceeds the stimulus is an open question, but there should be no question that innovation will continue to occur without patents. If the drag is now exceeding the stimulus then innovation could even accelerate if they were removed entirely.
If all of that work and expense could be done by one company, and any other company could snap it up w/o having to invest in that research, then who in their right mind would invest 10's or 100's of millions of dollars into producing a product when that basically means they're giving it to their competetors for free?
Perhaps you should ask IBM or Novell about the money they're putting into Linux?
The point I'm making is not that big-pharma could necessarily emulate the OSS model, but rather that its ridiculous to assume that innovation and the advance of technology would suddenly collapse if patents were removed. Frankly I give the free-market a little more credit than that. There *will* be a way of making money in such an environment, and the free market *will* find it.
It may turn out to be even MORE effective than what we have now; after all, big-pharma is not really even in the business of curing people. No real money in making someone healthy. When the product is drugs the business model would rather find a pill that activated an aids victim's immune system that would need to be taken every 8 hours than an actual cure.
This is EXACTLY how to deal with this problem. Everybody pretend it isn't working, and he'll return it to the manufacturer, which will tell him that it is indeed working, and will hopefully redirect his rage toward the manufacturer.
...
Yeah, cuz there's no way this guy will be able to find someone under 25 he trusts. I mean he surely won't have any kids or grandkids or nieces or nephews
And then his paranoia WILL be justified; the whole town is somehow out to get him...
This is dumber than just breaking the device.
The smart thing to do has been covered countless times:
Step 0: Act like mature responsible adults. You want to be taken seriously you've got to look and act the part. This isn't the time to look like your on your way to a Rob Zombie concert. Its not enough that you are legally right; you want them to care about your issue not force them to go through the motions.
1) Talk to the guy and sincerely try to resolve the problem.
2) Write him a polite letter. (keep copies)
3) Approach both police and city/municipal government with pics of device, documentation about device, copy of letter, and a list of witnesses with contact information who will attest to the problem. Preferably have someone older who can hear it do this. Ideally a home-owning parent with young kids. You really shouldn't have any issues getting action done if an entire neighborhood is truly suffering from this.
4) If all that fails you might also try contacting local media with the story as well. If they cover it, it will goad reticent police or municipal government to act.
Man, I hate it when I make potential errors. How does VS deal with virtual errors?
Potential errors = errors that could/would have happened but didn't.
I'm not sure what your "virtual errors" would be.
VS eliminates a lot of potential errors... for example: I often forget whether the spelling of the css 'built in color' is "grey" or "gray"; Iirc firefox accepts both, while IE only understands gray. My natural inclination is to spell 'grey', but the standard specifies 'gray'. VS code completion helps prevent me from using 'grey'.
By popping up the list of colors as i type, the odds of me getting it wrong is reduced. And a potential error is avoided.
Simililarly, it also helps ensure that the elements of a 'background:' are ordered correctly, as in some cases some browsers ignore them if they aren't in the right order.
By showing me the syntax as I type, the potential for me to put them in the wrong order is greatly reduced. And a potential error is avoided.
cheers
Can MS speak the same on IE 8?
;)
Of course they can, just not yet. You just need a bit of patience.
After all how can MS know what features they'll be inventing or innovating before their competition has invented and innovated them first??
Light Tools? What are you talking about?
:)
The parent to my post said "REal men still code in a simple code tool. Fakers and wannabees use Visual studio."
I was specifically comparing VS to -other- light tools that would fall under the "simple code tool" that the GP is apparently so fond of.
I agree, VS is not a light tool itself.
Don't even get me started on the watering-down of "puzzles" in modern games. ... Plover's egg emeralds hidden beyond a crack your lamp doesn't fit through? Try THAT on for size!
"google plover's egg emeralds"
Within 4 clicks I had a walkthru that told me exactly how to do it.
The internet ruined those kind of puzzle games, because almost nobody is going to spend weeks trying to figure something out when they KNOW the answer is sitting within arms reach.
At least jumping obstacle reflex puzzles require some semblance of dexterity to solve.
The internet fundamentally changed the dynamics of these games. Many (most?) players find it difficult to ignore that the answers to all their questions are within arms reach.
/shrug
Visual Studio actually has a pretty solid source code editor, with good syntax highlighting, and its code completion for css properties and html attributes is very good. (And its ability to offer effortless code completion for asp tags, AND user-defined controls is extremely helpful.) Not to mention its real-time "error" checking (improper tag nesting, mismatched tags, etc). It prevents and catches a lot of potential errors as you make them.
I do agree that doing a lot of work in the gui-designer results in bloated pages that need a ton of work to slim down and make crossplatform friendly. But nobody is forcing you to do that, and really if you know what you are doing you almost never use the visual designer mode. I only use it to drag user-controls onto the page; because in gui-mode it handles the boilerplate to register the tagprefix, etc. I also occasionally use it to create event handlers, because double clicking say a linkbutton in design view will write the boilerplate for the function signature, as well as handle the event wiring.
Like any tool, Visual Studio can be used effectively or ineffectively. When compared to most other "light tools" I find Visual Studio to be more productive -- sure I can build pages even in notepad but I make fewer typos when using the source code editor in Visual studio.
(There are other good editors too, don't get me wrong. I'm just saying that visual studio belongs among them.)
I've never really underderstood Transgaming's focus on cross platform gaming. Most Linux and Mac users aren't heavy gamers. Most people tend to use Windows or consoles for gaming. If you're using OS X or Linux it's generally to get something (real work) done.
... when its plain as day that your just limiting your potential sales.
;)
In fact I can't understand why any business would focus on an obvious niche that any one can see represents a minority of the population. Be it something like exotic cooling solutions for nvidia gpus, left handed golf clubs, spinners to stick on your rims, gaming on the mac,
I say businesses should focus only on things *everybody* needs... like pants. Or Duct tape. Or pr0n.
cheers