Glad you took the time to get the Texas statute. Based on the description in the article, it seems like it would be difficult to call this kid's actions a terroristic threat. They have to show more than a mere "threat" to commit a violent act (threat is in quotes because it seems to me that what constitutes a threat is debatable)--they have to show that this kid actually intended to "place the public or a substantial group of the public in fear of serious bodily injury" (or one of the other options). Unless that article way, way downplayed what actually happened--which is totally possible--then it seems like it will be impossible to prove intent here.
For once I actually RTFA, because I couldn't think of a crime this kid could have been charged with. He is charged with "making a terroristic threat."
Then I wondered what that means, feeling a bit surprised that this kid's actions could be interpreted as a terroristic threat (though, I think we can all agree that sometimes summaries on/. and descriptions in news can be innaccurate, which may very well be the case here), so I found this summary of the common elements of the crime of "making a terroristic threat":
I guess I just don't recall the summary or article suggesting Tivo's patents were "silly" or "not being licensed fairly." In fact, it seemed to suggest that Tivo had some good patents for good technology. This being the case, equating "patent holder" with "patent troll" still seems like a big jump for me here....
I think that whether or not an entity is a "non-practicing entity" is not necessarily relevant. For example, imagine for a moment that I am an engineer who loves to tinker on cars, but my day job is as a receptionist at a dentist's office (tough job market), and after 18 months of trial and error I figure out that I can get much better gas mileage on my 2013 Suburu BRZ, without losing performance, using a fuel injector that I designed myself in my garage. I don't have the ability to market or build this, so I patent it and then call up Honda, Toyota, and Bosch and say I think I can improve on your fuel injector design...
Does that make the hypothetical me a patent troll just because I don't have the funding to build the fuel injectors myself? If you think so, I disagree with you.
Here is a patent troll, in my mind: I file a patent for "method of delivery of combustibles into combustion chamber of internal combustion engine" with the primary features of the invention being "combustible liquid sprays into cylinder" and "computer has the ability to alter flow of combustible based on input from operator of throttle." And then I write demand letters to automakers (and Bosch, of course), who have been using designs to this effect for years, saying "you're infringing my patent!"
I think there is much more nuance to determination of whether a person or company is a patent troll than simply looking at whether or not they use their own invention.
And, for the record, with respect to Tivo in particular as "nothing more than a Patent Holder (albeit a successful one)" -- I don't think this was meant literally. I do not believe there have been any gaps during which Tivo stopped producing Tivos. Does that mean definitely that it is NOT a patent troll? No. If it did stop producing Tivos but continued licensing its patents, does that mean definitely that it IS a patent troll? No.
You can say what you want about them - but to refer to them as nothing but a Patent Troll is pretty insulting.
Wow--does "patent holder" = "patent troll" now in common parlance? I did not RTFA, but the summary at least does not suggest to me some sort of problem with Tivo's patent holding (such as aggressively enforcing extremely broad software patents for stuff that practically everyone is doing). I read the summary to basically just mean what you said--Tivo makes a good product and people like it, so other companies are willing to license their patents, because their patented ideas are good ones.
It has no benefits compared to a separate search field, only flaws.
I disagree. In my opinion there is benefit to not wasting screen real estate. Some of us don't have much. That search bar is usually in the address bar, which shortens the address field, causing me to be unable to see some of the web address. If I am wanting to know what the web address says, then at that moment, I am not in need of a search field, and it would be nice if it could go away and make way for more address field. In fact, I cannot think of a time when I am even in need of an address field and search field at the same moment. So, for those of us with limited screen real estate, it makes perfect sense to combine the two.
As for it breaking web standards, I am not an expert on this topic. The developers of Opera, however, are (and real sticklers about it, to my understanding), and Opera was the first browser of which I am aware that allowed searching from the address bar. I haven't had any issues with local DNS or manual entry of IP addresses.
I am not an engineer. So, you engineers out there--are we nearing the theoretical limit on these things? I mean, 19 nm is pretty darn small. It seems to me that at some point Moore's law has to fail simply because you can't make a connection less than one atom thick. And making a connection one atom thick would be stupid, I would think, for reliability reasons. So--is Moore's law, as extended to NAND flash memory failing due to the fact that it has nearly reached its lowest theoretical size?
Seriously--that movie annoyed me very much. My wife was like "you'll like this movie because it's about math." Which turned out to be false. (my expectations were apparently unreasonably high)
Wait--back up a minute here. I can understand that this topic in general is a stimulus for conversation about why the US government is a lot like Soviet Russia, but, it isn't like what we're hearing in this article is particularly revolutionary or surprising. What it says is that financial institutions have been required for a long time to report suspicious activity or accounts to the Department of the Treasury. This database has been accessible to the FBI all along. This was set up because the government wanted a tool to deal with people like Michael Corleone (and also nonfictional characters of that type). The breaking news here is that the CIA and NSA will have access to the same database without having to ask special permission every time.
Frankly, the fact that the CIA and NSA didn't have full access previously is shocking and shows how incredibly inefficient the government is. Now that the government is focused less on mob bosses and more on terrorists, and the CIA and NSA deal with terrorists more than mob bosses, someone in the government said "it is incredibly inefficient to have to make requests to the FBI for every person we think might be a terrorist."
Here is a snippet from the article:
Financial institutions that operate in the United States are required by law to file reports of "suspicious customer activity," such as large money transfers or unusually structured bank accounts, to Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).
The Federal Bureau of Investigation already has full access to the database. However, intelligence agencies, such as the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, currently have to make case-by-case requests for information to FinCEN.
One more point: it isn't like this database includes the details every American's bank account. Such a database would be completely useless due to the sheer volume of information. It only includes "suspicious" information reported to the government by financial institutions. You know, like wire transfers over $10,000, etc.
Except that you can't really "in-shore cheaper help" very easily using H-1Bs--you're required to pay at least the "prevailing wage". Perhaps foreigners artificially keep the prevailing wage from rising, but it can't go down due to immigrants under the current system. Also, you're supposed to show that no American wants the job at hand, which is rather difficult to show.
And the H-1B has a time limit of 6 years, I believe. The foreigner has to get a green card or get out before the visa expires.
Also, think of the alternative--if you are correct that the foreigners will work for less, if you keep them out of the US, then the tech firms will instead set up offices in India. It makes more sense to keep the jobs in the US, use a system to make sure the foreigners don't depress wages in the US.
The article seems to suggest that the laser was not simply going through air:
"[W]eather at the Ochsenboden Proving Ground in Switzerland where the demonstration was carried out included ice, rain, snow, and extremely bright sunlight – far from ideal."
Not to mention--I assume Dell doesn't get any money for crapware on the Linux variant. (I have no idea how much money Dell gets for crapware, so I don't know if it is enough to totally offset the license for Windows, but it's a thought anyway)
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned that 'when some people use this freedom of expression to provoke or humiliate some others' values and beliefs, then this cannot be protected.' It appears that the one thing modern society can no longer tolerate is intolerance. As Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard put it in her recent speech before the United Nations, 'Our tolerance must never extend to tolerating religious hatred.'"
These people obviously just didn't think their statements through very well.
Here's the problem with "cracking the door": who decides what constitutes "provocation or humiliation of some another's values and beliefs"? No matter who makes that decision, it is a problem, because the decision will be based on that person's or body's ideals. For example, that crazy Florida pastor's hateful speech against gay rights would be certainly be censored by Ki-moon and Gillard as an attack on the values and beliefs of gay people. But censoring this guy is equivalent to an attack on the values and beliefs of the crazy pastor.
No one has the right to not be offended. We'd all end up in jail for "provoking or humiliating someone's values and beliefs" simply be not tiptoeing very carefully in everything we say and do. And even then, many people will even get offended by the tiptoers, because people are idiots.
If the search finds nothing, does that mean the Rare Earth Hypothesis is correct? Or maybe advanced civilizations find a way to hide their energy consumption, or maybe they don't grow or don't need the levels of energy that we think they do. A null result from this search leads to many interesting questions.
A null result wouldn't tell us any of those things, because a null result doesn't even mean that there are no Dyson Spheres out there. Instead a null result would just be inconclusive.
What mistake? A mistake is accidental. My understanding is that this spying was not mistaken, accidental spying. "Oh, we meant to spy on your neighbor, the druglord, and accidentally came upon this...."
This was not a mistake. Someone made a decision to do something in violation of the law, and then carried out acts in violation of the law. "To catch a thief" is not sufficient justification in my mind for violation of the law by government officials.
it shouldn't be a big deal to code apps for 8 and 7. happens all the time in the app store where most apps now require iOS 4.x and will have some special iOS 5 features if you have the latest version
Inaccurate statement. We're talking about a completely different realm here from "people do this in iOS all the time." We're talking about App makers paying app developers to code the same thing two different ways so that their app will work on two platforms, neither of which has any market share to speak of. Even if 8 takes off, no one will pay to port these things to 7--the market share is just too small.
Basically, I feel bad for anyone who bought a phone running Windows Phone 7, because it is a lost cause. And anyone who going forward buys a phone running Windows Phone 7 is either stupid, doesn't care about apps (this may be true of anyone who buys a Windows Phone anyway), or was badly informed by a dishonest salesperson.
Totally, I mean, in the book both the eggs and the ham are green. It would be hard to suggest from the text that they don't get along--the book does not anthropomorphize them. They're just green eggs and green ham being forced on someone by some dude named Sam.
A better comparison would be to the fox and Knox in Fox in Socks. They don't get along. And they disagree strongly regarding the propriety of the use of a sort of code (tongue twisters).
And once a country admits that it's created such software, publicly deflecting such blame gets a lot harder.
The link leads to another/. article, which leads to another, etc, until it eventually lands at this NY Times article.
This article is not an admission by anyone regarding Stuxnet, Flame, or anything else. It just allegedly quotes a bunch of anonymous sources about supposed top secret information.
I promise I don't work for the federal government.
Slashdot Mirror
My comments on Texas statute here:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3916777&cid=44135469
Glad you took the time to get the Texas statute. Based on the description in the article, it seems like it would be difficult to call this kid's actions a terroristic threat. They have to show more than a mere "threat" to commit a violent act (threat is in quotes because it seems to me that what constitutes a threat is debatable)--they have to show that this kid actually intended to "place the public or a substantial group of the public in fear of serious bodily injury" (or one of the other options). Unless that article way, way downplayed what actually happened--which is totally possible--then it seems like it will be impossible to prove intent here.
For once I actually RTFA, because I couldn't think of a crime this kid could have been charged with. He is charged with "making a terroristic threat."
Then I wondered what that means, feeling a bit surprised that this kid's actions could be interpreted as a terroristic threat (though, I think we can all agree that sometimes summaries on /. and descriptions in news can be innaccurate, which may very well be the case here), so I found this summary of the common elements of the crime of "making a terroristic threat":
http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/making-a-terrorist-threat.html
Basically, my conclusion is that, yes, we should all be afraid--This is getting into "thought crime" territory.
I guess I just don't recall the summary or article suggesting Tivo's patents were "silly" or "not being licensed fairly." In fact, it seemed to suggest that Tivo had some good patents for good technology. This being the case, equating "patent holder" with "patent troll" still seems like a big jump for me here....
I think that whether or not an entity is a "non-practicing entity" is not necessarily relevant. For example, imagine for a moment that I am an engineer who loves to tinker on cars, but my day job is as a receptionist at a dentist's office (tough job market), and after 18 months of trial and error I figure out that I can get much better gas mileage on my 2013 Suburu BRZ, without losing performance, using a fuel injector that I designed myself in my garage. I don't have the ability to market or build this, so I patent it and then call up Honda, Toyota, and Bosch and say I think I can improve on your fuel injector design...
Does that make the hypothetical me a patent troll just because I don't have the funding to build the fuel injectors myself? If you think so, I disagree with you.
Here is a patent troll, in my mind: I file a patent for "method of delivery of combustibles into combustion chamber of internal combustion engine" with the primary features of the invention being "combustible liquid sprays into cylinder" and "computer has the ability to alter flow of combustible based on input from operator of throttle." And then I write demand letters to automakers (and Bosch, of course), who have been using designs to this effect for years, saying "you're infringing my patent!"
I think there is much more nuance to determination of whether a person or company is a patent troll than simply looking at whether or not they use their own invention.
And, for the record, with respect to Tivo in particular as "nothing more than a Patent Holder (albeit a successful one)" -- I don't think this was meant literally. I do not believe there have been any gaps during which Tivo stopped producing Tivos. Does that mean definitely that it is NOT a patent troll? No. If it did stop producing Tivos but continued licensing its patents, does that mean definitely that it IS a patent troll? No.
You can say what you want about them - but to refer to them as nothing but a Patent Troll is pretty insulting.
Wow--does "patent holder" = "patent troll" now in common parlance? I did not RTFA, but the summary at least does not suggest to me some sort of problem with Tivo's patent holding (such as aggressively enforcing extremely broad software patents for stuff that practically everyone is doing). I read the summary to basically just mean what you said--Tivo makes a good product and people like it, so other companies are willing to license their patents, because their patented ideas are good ones.
It has no benefits compared to a separate search field, only flaws.
I disagree. In my opinion there is benefit to not wasting screen real estate. Some of us don't have much. That search bar is usually in the address bar, which shortens the address field, causing me to be unable to see some of the web address. If I am wanting to know what the web address says, then at that moment, I am not in need of a search field, and it would be nice if it could go away and make way for more address field. In fact, I cannot think of a time when I am even in need of an address field and search field at the same moment. So, for those of us with limited screen real estate, it makes perfect sense to combine the two.
As for it breaking web standards, I am not an expert on this topic. The developers of Opera, however, are (and real sticklers about it, to my understanding), and Opera was the first browser of which I am aware that allowed searching from the address bar. I haven't had any issues with local DNS or manual entry of IP addresses.
I am not an engineer. So, you engineers out there--are we nearing the theoretical limit on these things? I mean, 19 nm is pretty darn small. It seems to me that at some point Moore's law has to fail simply because you can't make a connection less than one atom thick. And making a connection one atom thick would be stupid, I would think, for reliability reasons. So--is Moore's law, as extended to NAND flash memory failing due to the fact that it has nearly reached its lowest theoretical size?
Seriously--that movie annoyed me very much. My wife was like "you'll like this movie because it's about math." Which turned out to be false. (my expectations were apparently unreasonably high)
Wait--back up a minute here. I can understand that this topic in general is a stimulus for conversation about why the US government is a lot like Soviet Russia, but, it isn't like what we're hearing in this article is particularly revolutionary or surprising. What it says is that financial institutions have been required for a long time to report suspicious activity or accounts to the Department of the Treasury. This database has been accessible to the FBI all along. This was set up because the government wanted a tool to deal with people like Michael Corleone (and also nonfictional characters of that type). The breaking news here is that the CIA and NSA will have access to the same database without having to ask special permission every time.
Frankly, the fact that the CIA and NSA didn't have full access previously is shocking and shows how incredibly inefficient the government is. Now that the government is focused less on mob bosses and more on terrorists, and the CIA and NSA deal with terrorists more than mob bosses, someone in the government said "it is incredibly inefficient to have to make requests to the FBI for every person we think might be a terrorist."
Here is a snippet from the article:
Financial institutions that operate in the United States are required by law to file reports of "suspicious customer activity," such as large money transfers or unusually structured bank accounts, to Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).
The Federal Bureau of Investigation already has full access to the database. However, intelligence agencies, such as the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, currently have to make case-by-case requests for information to FinCEN.
One more point: it isn't like this database includes the details every American's bank account. Such a database would be completely useless due to the sheer volume of information. It only includes "suspicious" information reported to the government by financial institutions. You know, like wire transfers over $10,000, etc.
Except that you can't really "in-shore cheaper help" very easily using H-1Bs--you're required to pay at least the "prevailing wage". Perhaps foreigners artificially keep the prevailing wage from rising, but it can't go down due to immigrants under the current system. Also, you're supposed to show that no American wants the job at hand, which is rather difficult to show.
And the H-1B has a time limit of 6 years, I believe. The foreigner has to get a green card or get out before the visa expires.
Also, think of the alternative--if you are correct that the foreigners will work for less, if you keep them out of the US, then the tech firms will instead set up offices in India. It makes more sense to keep the jobs in the US, use a system to make sure the foreigners don't depress wages in the US.
The article seems to suggest that the laser was not simply going through air:
"[W]eather at the Ochsenboden Proving Ground in Switzerland where the demonstration was carried out included ice, rain, snow, and extremely bright sunlight – far from ideal."
Not to mention--I assume Dell doesn't get any money for crapware on the Linux variant. (I have no idea how much money Dell gets for crapware, so I don't know if it is enough to totally offset the license for Windows, but it's a thought anyway)
Seriously.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned that 'when some people use this freedom of expression to provoke or humiliate some others' values and beliefs, then this cannot be protected.' It appears that the one thing modern society can no longer tolerate is intolerance. As Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard put it in her recent speech before the United Nations, 'Our tolerance must never extend to tolerating religious hatred.'"
These people obviously just didn't think their statements through very well.
Here's the problem with "cracking the door": who decides what constitutes "provocation or humiliation of some another's values and beliefs"? No matter who makes that decision, it is a problem, because the decision will be based on that person's or body's ideals. For example, that crazy Florida pastor's hateful speech against gay rights would be certainly be censored by Ki-moon and Gillard as an attack on the values and beliefs of gay people. But censoring this guy is equivalent to an attack on the values and beliefs of the crazy pastor.
No one has the right to not be offended. We'd all end up in jail for "provoking or humiliating someone's values and beliefs" simply be not tiptoeing very carefully in everything we say and do. And even then, many people will even get offended by the tiptoers, because people are idiots.
This is an easy one. It's a monolith.
If the search finds nothing, does that mean the Rare Earth Hypothesis is correct? Or maybe advanced civilizations find a way to hide their energy consumption, or maybe they don't grow or don't need the levels of energy that we think they do. A null result from this search leads to many interesting questions.
A null result wouldn't tell us any of those things, because a null result doesn't even mean that there are no Dyson Spheres out there. Instead a null result would just be inconclusive.
Now run a comparison to Google's maps so we can see side by side.
What mistake? A mistake is accidental. My understanding is that this spying was not mistaken, accidental spying. "Oh, we meant to spy on your neighbor, the druglord, and accidentally came upon this...."
This was not a mistake. Someone made a decision to do something in violation of the law, and then carried out acts in violation of the law. "To catch a thief" is not sufficient justification in my mind for violation of the law by government officials.
it shouldn't be a big deal to code apps for 8 and 7. happens all the time in the app store where most apps now require iOS 4.x and will have some special iOS 5 features if you have the latest version
Inaccurate statement. We're talking about a completely different realm here from "people do this in iOS all the time." We're talking about App makers paying app developers to code the same thing two different ways so that their app will work on two platforms, neither of which has any market share to speak of. Even if 8 takes off, no one will pay to port these things to 7--the market share is just too small.
Basically, I feel bad for anyone who bought a phone running Windows Phone 7, because it is a lost cause. And anyone who going forward buys a phone running Windows Phone 7 is either stupid, doesn't care about apps (this may be true of anyone who buys a Windows Phone anyway), or was badly informed by a dishonest salesperson.
comparing a well tuned video device driver versus the (usually) hastily written Linux one is a poor comparison.
Uhhhh, why? That was the point of the test. Same hardware, different software, what is the performance difference?
Totally, I mean, in the book both the eggs and the ham are green. It would be hard to suggest from the text that they don't get along--the book does not anthropomorphize them. They're just green eggs and green ham being forced on someone by some dude named Sam.
A better comparison would be to the fox and Knox in Fox in Socks. They don't get along. And they disagree strongly regarding the propriety of the use of a sort of code (tongue twisters).
Some are held for charity ...
Some for fancy dress...
Is it just me that thinks it is hilarious that the parent post is mod + 3 informative?
And once a country admits that it's created such software, publicly deflecting such blame gets a lot harder.
The link leads to another /. article, which leads to another, etc, until it eventually lands at this NY Times article.
This article is not an admission by anyone regarding Stuxnet, Flame, or anything else. It just allegedly quotes a bunch of anonymous sources about supposed top secret information.
I promise I don't work for the federal government.
Pediatric neurology. Big difference.