Odd... I've talked to the 911 dispatchers in my city (Plano, TX), and they said YES! Please call us if you have VOIP and make sure the correct address is coming through. (They also suggested making sure all visitors know your address if you don't have a landline phone to call 911 from, so they know what to tell the dispatcher)
Anyone else think that a policy like this would be horribly easy to abuse?
Student: *create new blog* "hi! My name is (name of person that cut in front of me in the lunch line yesterday). My school sucks and the principal is a gay child molester."
"These people are either overwhelmed by the number of claims and have no time to do the proper research before granting a patent, or they are are just plain stupid. I'm going to be generous and assume that these examiners are given a quota that they have to have resolved each week and that they haven't the time or resources to validate every claim. There is probably also a lack of expertise in the USPTO to properly vet the claims made in these applications."
So, what they need to do is set up a SlashCode site, post the patent filings as articles, and let the public post comments and references to prior art which get moderated so they don't have to dig too far. After two weeks, they can review and process them. Simple:)
"Right, right. But see, you happen to know what you're talking about, and you're talking about it on Slashdot. Now we cue proverbs about casting pearls before swine, etc., and pen some cynical post about idiots on the internet."
This is slashdot... the correct proverb is casting *URLs* before swine.
"One of them will be the CEO, and he'll berate you in front of his smarmy suspender-wearing jerkoff golf buddies because you're a dumb hick that can't fit a terabyte of mp3s and porn (most of it redundant for chrissakes) into only 500 gigs of disk."
And as soon as I get back to my office, I'll^H^H^H^Hhe'll 'accidently' forward most of that porn to the PR dept. of our chief rivals...:)
Grocery store? Nah... since eventually EVERYONE would need these, why not simply have have X amount delivered to your house once a week, and the empties removed? We could reclaim a hell of a lot of street corners.
"- Raise taxes. Gap! yes! raise *YOUR* taxes so that *YOUR* children may go to school and have a chance at a good education and a good future, a concept America as a whole has completely forgotten for some reason."
Instead, add a municipal school tax equal to the federal deduction you get for having a school-age dependent?
This is why I think liability insurance should be billed based on vehicle weight, since that will deterimine how much damage you do if you hit something. Pick something like 3300lb (about what a tarus/camry/accord weighs) as the denominator, and the weight of the vehicle as the numerator. So if you're paying $500 now, you'd end up paying $375 for a 2500lb econobox, $500 for a camry, or $1300 for a 8600lb hummer.
"This way, nobody can see your picture unless they already have your username and password, and if you get phished for those, you know it because the picture isn't right, but they don't have your second username and password required to actually access your account."
So, if I were a phisher, I'd work it like this: User: *enter u/p on phishing site* Phishing site: *slurp* Phishing site: *log in to bank site with new u/p and retrieve image* Phishing site: Look! We're really the bank, see?? User: *phew!* *enters other u/p* Phishing site: *slurp* User: NOOOO!!
And if you can't get the image imediately, just print an error and tell the user to either continue or return later.
You might add to your point #1 that you should probably allow 2 weeks of caffine-freeness before trying that experiment. If a bodyful of caffine is keeping you from sleeping, you're still going to feel sluggish. If you excercise and stay away from caffiene (so you can actually sleep), you'll find that you don't need all that coffee in the morning.
And #2 is right on. Five years ago I started taking care of the network at an elementary school - including the labs full of computers that get sneezed on by 500 kids/day. I was sick 3 times in the first three months, and basically never since. I can 'catch' something that keeps my roommate home from work for a week and only feel mildly under the weather for a day.
"Colleges don't get any of your property taxes..."
Universities don't, but community colleges do. Check your property tax statement. If you're not a homeowner and have never seen one, you'll usually have a city tax, school district tax, and community college district tax.
"Fans, power supplies, and hard drives start to crap out in massive quantities after a couple of years..."
Dell now offers 5-year warranties. I work at a school fortunate enough to be able to actually buy new hardware on a three-year cycle, but we immediately took advantage of this. The computers we cycled out this summer were P4s that could easily handle XP with a small memory upgrade.
"That would be really funny if the prompt read, "Press any key" and every key on the keyboard changed to read "Any".:)"
Tech Support: Hello, how may I help you? Customer: Hi, it says to press the 'Any' key, but I see 104 'Any' keys... which one do I press? Tech Support: *blam*
no, go ahead and put it on ahead of time, especially if you're going to be out for a long time. As long as you don't stay completely locked up inside, you probably get plenty of sun - walking to the mailbox, from your car in the parking lot to the store/work, etc. It's too easy to forget, and that 5 minutes unprotected is the same exposure as 2 hours with SPF 30.
I Am Not A Doctor, but my understanding of sun exposure is that you get cancer because UV is ionizing radiation. Therefore it doesn't matter if it's 5 hours at a time or 15 minutes a day - every minute you're in the sun is another chance to start a cancer, regardless of how many minutes came before or after. Having a tan can protect you similarly to wearing sunblock, but you have to have the exposure to get and maintain the tan in the first place, which kind of offsets any protection you get. (except that you'll be less likely to burn) I'm not even sure that getting a burn makes you more likely to get cancer; I think it just damages your skin in other ways.
Maybe not... I'm willing to bet the scanners could be made to use additional information, like finger position, to validate. If you were unconcious, the villain would probably get it wrong, and set off some alarm. If you were concious, you can put your hand on the scanner, but use the finger configuration for "help, I'm under duress!" (fingers spread vs. various combinations of two or three together) Or, for that matter use the wrong hand.
Slashdot Mirror
1st patent this year: $200
:)
2nd patent this year: $400
3rd patent this year: $800
4th patent this year: $1600
not so bad for the 'little guys' that patents are supposed to protect, huh?
50th patent this year: $112,589,990,684,262,400
better pick 'em carefully, though
or maybe the first patent you hold costs $2000 and the Nth patent you hold costs $N,000, regardless of time?
Odd... I've talked to the 911 dispatchers in my city (Plano, TX), and they said YES! Please call us if you have VOIP and make sure the correct address is coming through. (They also suggested making sure all visitors know your address if you don't have a landline phone to call 911 from, so they know what to tell the dispatcher)
...if some clever programmers at First4Internet with an agenda did this on purpose.
:)
It was obviously a golden opportunity to bring the whole DRM BS to a head.
If that's the case, bravo!!
...600W power supply? :P
"Quick -- someone patent that storyline and sue Amazon for infringemen"
:)
Sorry, the Mice have prior art
Anyone else think that a policy like this would be horribly easy to abuse?
Student: *create new blog*
"hi! My name is (name of person that cut in front of me in the lunch line yesterday). My school sucks and the principal is a gay child molester."
Principal: "What you say?!" *expel*
"These people are either overwhelmed by the number of claims and have no time to do the proper research before granting a patent, or they are are just plain stupid. I'm going to be generous and assume that these examiners are given a quota that they have to have resolved each week and that they haven't the time or resources to validate every claim. There is probably also a lack of expertise in the USPTO to properly vet the claims made in these applications."
:)
So, what they need to do is set up a SlashCode site, post the patent filings as articles, and let the public post comments and references to prior art which get moderated so they don't have to dig too far. After two weeks, they can review and process them. Simple
...stupidity really IS contagious!
yes! We're all Equal Opportunity Offenders here!
"Right, right. But see, you happen to know what you're talking about, and you're talking about it on Slashdot. Now we cue proverbs about casting pearls before swine, etc., and pen some cynical post about idiots on the internet."
This is slashdot... the correct proverb is casting *URLs* before swine.
"One of them will be the CEO, and he'll berate you in front of his smarmy suspender-wearing jerkoff golf buddies because you're a dumb hick that can't fit a terabyte of mp3s and porn (most of it redundant for chrissakes) into only 500 gigs of disk."
:)
And as soon as I get back to my office, I'll^H^H^H^Hhe'll 'accidently' forward most of that porn to the PR dept. of our chief rivals...
Fortunately, it was mostly just spewing hot air...
Grocery store? Nah... since eventually EVERYONE would need these, why not simply have have X amount delivered to your house once a week, and the empties removed? We could reclaim a hell of a lot of street corners.
"- Raise taxes. Gap! yes! raise *YOUR* taxes so that *YOUR* children may go to school and have a chance at a good education and a good future, a concept America as a whole has completely forgotten for some reason."
Instead, add a municipal school tax equal to the federal deduction you get for having a school-age dependent?
I know, I deleat them all the time!
This is why I think liability insurance should be billed based on vehicle weight, since that will deterimine how much damage you do if you hit something. Pick something like 3300lb (about what a tarus/camry/accord weighs) as the denominator, and the weight of the vehicle as the numerator. So if you're paying $500 now, you'd end up paying $375 for a 2500lb econobox, $500 for a camry, or $1300 for a 8600lb hummer.
"Finding Evil Printers should be easy. Just test for the Evil Bit."
:)
What's the SNMP MIB for that?
However, he's obviously the windows programmer responsible for the behavior that you're not making a jab at. :)
"This way, nobody can see your picture unless they already have your username and password, and if you get phished for those, you know it because the picture isn't right, but they don't have your second username and password required to actually access your account."
So, if I were a phisher, I'd work it like this:
User: *enter u/p on phishing site*
Phishing site: *slurp*
Phishing site: *log in to bank site with new u/p and retrieve image*
Phishing site: Look! We're really the bank, see??
User: *phew!* *enters other u/p*
Phishing site: *slurp*
User: NOOOO!!
And if you can't get the image imediately, just print an error and tell the user to either continue or return later.
Amen brother! :)
You might add to your point #1 that you should probably allow 2 weeks of caffine-freeness before trying that experiment. If a bodyful of caffine is keeping you from sleeping, you're still going to feel sluggish. If you excercise and stay away from caffiene (so you can actually sleep), you'll find that you don't need all that coffee in the morning.
And #2 is right on. Five years ago I started taking care of the network at an elementary school - including the labs full of computers that get sneezed on by 500 kids/day. I was sick 3 times in the first three months, and basically never since. I can 'catch' something that keeps my roommate home from work for a week and only feel mildly under the weather for a day.
"Colleges don't get any of your property taxes..."
Universities don't, but community colleges do. Check your property tax statement. If you're not a homeowner and have never seen one, you'll usually have a city tax, school district tax, and community college district tax.
"Fans, power supplies, and hard drives start to crap out in massive quantities after a couple of years..."
Dell now offers 5-year warranties. I work at a school fortunate enough to be able to actually buy new hardware on a three-year cycle, but we immediately took advantage of this. The computers we cycled out this summer were P4s that could easily handle XP with a small memory upgrade.
"That would be really funny if the prompt read, "Press any key" and every key on the keyboard changed to read "Any". :)"
Tech Support: Hello, how may I help you?
Customer: Hi, it says to press the 'Any' key, but I see 104 'Any' keys... which one do I press?
Tech Support: *blam*
no, go ahead and put it on ahead of time, especially if you're going to be out for a long time. As long as you don't stay completely locked up inside, you probably get plenty of sun - walking to the mailbox, from your car in the parking lot to the store/work, etc. It's too easy to forget, and that 5 minutes unprotected is the same exposure as 2 hours with SPF 30.
I Am Not A Doctor, but my understanding of sun exposure is that you get cancer because UV is ionizing radiation. Therefore it doesn't matter if it's 5 hours at a time or 15 minutes a day - every minute you're in the sun is another chance to start a cancer, regardless of how many minutes came before or after. Having a tan can protect you similarly to wearing sunblock, but you have to have the exposure to get and maintain the tan in the first place, which kind of offsets any protection you get. (except that you'll be less likely to burn) I'm not even sure that getting a burn makes you more likely to get cancer; I think it just damages your skin in other ways.
Maybe not... I'm willing to bet the scanners could be made to use additional information, like finger position, to validate. If you were unconcious, the villain would probably get it wrong, and set off some alarm. If you were concious, you can put your hand on the scanner, but use the finger configuration for "help, I'm under duress!" (fingers spread vs. various combinations of two or three together) Or, for that matter use the wrong hand.