These have been available from Thinkgeek
for a while now. They also make a "travel version" without those fearsome weapons of mass
destruction. (Meaning the scissors, nail file and that itty-bitty knife.) Not that the travel
version is necessary, since the USB drive is removable.
Locking your doors when you leave is always a good one. I spent five years living in a campus setting and I don't remember ever hearing of someone who got their door busted in to have stuff stolen, but I have heard plenty of stories about people walking into unlocked rooms.
Good advice, but your roommate might be less security conscious (especially in freshman year). You might want to invest in a locking two-drawer file cabinet. You also might consider Ztrace. It checks into the internet whenever connected and relays it's location through IP addresses, phone numbers or whatever and effectively rats out the thief. It's not free -- between $49.95 for one year up to $149.45 for six years -- but that laptop wasn't cheap either.
The article does not say the company claiming copyright has conceded that the work is public domain, only that they're not pursuing the case against JibJab. It doesn't sound like they've really conceded much; they just don't want it in the court record that the song is now public domain. They're robably hoping to get a few more bucks out of it.
I was discussing this a while back with some Electric Vehicle wonks and there's a problem. Apparently direct use of alcohol (methanol or ethanol) on a fuel cell eventually "poisons" the membrane over time. It's okay for small electronics because it takes so long for the membrane to fail that it's still a viable option. But for big applications like cars that use so much fuel, it's not cost effective; the membrane fails too soon and is too expensive to replace. The Necar 5 which ran coast-to-coast used a reformer to convert methanol in order to obtain hydrogen.
There's a new solution to the age old problem of physical movement
within a virtual world.
IIRC it's not exactly new, Star Trek uses something like it
to explain holodeck movement, although there's the usual handwaving
about "force fields" instead of moving tiles. But the real issue
is going to be nausea. The problem occurs both in VR situations
and in more prosaic settings like motion sickness. If what your
eyes tell you (you're moving) is out of sync with what your inner
ear tells you (you're not moving) a lot of people get nauseous and
toss their cookies. That's why folks who get car sick are okay if
they keep looking out the window; their eyes tell them that they're
moving, so it's in sync with their inner ear.
Could definitely
be a downer if you're the next in line for that arcade game.
sounds like Novell are interested in dodging the case without having the issue of copyrights decided. . . . Why? What possible advantage would there be in this to them?
Think chess game. This is not a checkmate; more like taking a bishop. But if you have a choice between easily taking a bishop and pressing for a difficult checkmate, take the bishop and look for a better opening.
By having this case dismissed, Novell shuts down SCO's preferred line of attack. First of all, SCO will need to start over with a new suit, meaning more cash burn from SCO's rapidly depleting coffers. Second, it buys time for SCO's position on other fronts (like IBM's tenth counterclaim) to weaken. If IBM can prove there's no UNIX in Linux, the issue of who owns the UNIX copyrights becomes moot. Finally, it means that SCO will have to open a suit explicitly stating that they want to prove they own the copyrights, a very difficult position since the documentation doesn't seem to support that claim.
Remember, the job of Novell's lawyers is not to defend Linux. It is to defend Novell. It's only in the current circumstances that the two interests happen to coincide.
Well, it hasn't hit the main pages, but there has been some discussion. This post suggests that IBM did, in fact, have the necessary rights. Which would probably mean SCO dug up an email from an employee who didn't know what he was talking about, probably just expressing a concern. And this post which points out that the rights in the Monterey agreement were lopsided. IBM got a lot more options (including the option of unilaterally cancelling their involvement) than oldSCO got. Not unusual. When a little company is trying to ride a big company's coattails, they often make concessions in order to close the deal. In fact, SCO was limited to using Monterey on the x86, but IBM was not.
The "smoking gun" may actually net some money for SCO, but keep in mind that SCO's press statements usually just mean their execs have been smoking something else. If the emails say what SCO claims and if that employee knew what he was talking about and if the emails can be used in court, then maybe IBM owes some back licensing fees on AIX.
This has nothing to do with Linux, or IBM's motion for a preliminary injunction. IBM has asked the court to find that SCO has found no UNIX in Linux. SCO's "smoking gun" says they found UNIX in AIX. Gee, big surprise. That's why IBM pays licensing fees for AIX. All SCO is claiming is that they should have paid more. Of course Forbe's -- impartial reporters that they are -- can't resist a gratuitous jab at "Linux zealots", but Linux just is not involved here.
Nothing to see here, just SCO blowing their usual smoke.
IBM makes some great laptops, but the battery life has always sucked rocks. But according to this article it looks like the latest model has gotten up to a six hour plus lifespan. Of course, it still costs a bundle.
I live on my laptop and it's an older IBM model, so the battery life is pretty rotten. My solution has just been to find a plug. If I'm on the road, I keep a power converter in the car and plug the laptop in so I can run at a full charge. It's also good for keeping the three-year-old entertained on a long car trip.
Darl never actually says they're going to stop suing customers. What the actual interview says is:
McBride: Rather than trying to pound through all of those issues on a daily
basis, we've been content to say, "We're going to work our issues through the
courtroom, and when everything is resolved there, we'll be good to go . .. IDGNS: By saying you're fine with things, do you mean that you don't expect to be
launching any new lawsuits against Linux users? McBride: I think right now we've got the claims in front of the various courts
that we need in order to get our complaints heard and to get them argued and to
get resolution. With respect to being more vocal or going after new targets at
the customer level, we don't see the need for that.
At best, he's promising to stop customers for now, which is nothing more than acknowledging that this is all they can do at the moment. Without a win in IBM and/or Novell, SCO can't win customer lawsuits. They would
all end like AutoZone; the judge would tell them to wait until the other cases are
done. Or worse, like Daimler-Chrysler, which got thrown unceremoniously out of court with DC's lawyers entering sarcastic letters into evidence about how they did not verify the CPUs the code was not installed on because DC hadn't used the stuff in seven years. Since SCO has no other choice, they make contented noises like everything
is going their way. But everything he's saying is predicated on winning both the
IBM and the Novell lawsuits and then figuring out a way to get customers to pay SCO.
And none of the court cases have been going SCO's way.
Big companies trade patent rights like baseball cards, and IBM has more baseball cards than anyone. There are only 200 "potentially infringing" copyrights that are not owned by Linux allies and any copyright holder can make the problem go away by granting Linux royalty free use of the patent. If the allies release their patents, those remaining have two choices:
Try to enforce the patent. Doing this risks having the patent invalidated, losing one of their trading cards. And the best they could hope for is to collect a little money until a workaround is found.
Follow suit and release the patent for uses in Linux. Sure you won't make money off this, but you could still trade the patent with other companies for use of their patents.
The one fly in the ointment is any company (*cough*Microsoft*cough) that has a vested interest in seeing Linux fail. They might be willing to sacrifice some of their patent portfolio in order to make that happen. It also makes them number one on the patent examination hit parade.
Packard Bell did this. The original Packard Bell made television sets back in the 50s. When a computer entrepreneur wanted to start up in the mid-70s, he bought the name. It gave his computers instant respectability with those who remembered the old Packard Bell and it didn't hurt that the name also sounded like a cross between Hewlett Packard and Bell Telephone.
I suspect SCO (originally Caldera) wants to find a new name since they've destroyed any vestiges of goodwill attached to the name SCO. They'll probably wait until after the lawsuits, quietly change names and then seek a buyer for whatever is left of their business. They might even bring in new management chosen especially for their ability to convincingly express dismay with the sins of their predecessors.
I've been reading ebooks on my old Handspring Visor for years. I have two readers -- one for Palm Digital Media and one for Baen (including free scifi!) -- and don't see the problem. I've got a couple dozen books on my PDA now, including the complete Tarzan series and three or four scifi books I haven't read. Since I'm almost always carrying my PDA I can read any time I want and I don't have to wake my wife when I read in bed; I just turn on the backlighting. If I need room on my PDA I can just erase some books since I keep backups of the digital versions. I've also moved from one PDA to another and took my library with me.
Maybe I'm just a gadget freak but, frankly, I've never understood the problem. I read paper books and a few magazines as well, but don't much care how the words get in front of my eyeballs.
In the e-mail, which was sent to "Verizon Customer", they suggested I reply to the e-mail with my account name and credit card information.
They asked you to send credit card information in an email? Can will really complain about the stupidity of the average user when even a service provider can be so completely clueless?
why would any linux user use MS Office, especially when they have to pay for it?
Because they have ten years of archived documents in various MS formats (including VB automations) which require MS Office to make them all work. The value of those documents far outweighs the cost of MS Office.
Which is why MS won't make a Linux version of office any time soon. If there was a Linux version of Office, one of the major roadblocks that holds corporations back from adopting Linux would be gone as well. If you can get all your old documents to run on cheaper Linux boxes than on Windows, there is little reason to keep upgrading both Office and Windows. MS would also lose the whole "cost of training" argument if there was a Linux version of Office. Your average user needs training to use the office suite, not the OS.
If Microsoft ever makes a Linux version of Office, it will mean that they have accepted that Linux is replacing Windows and they have decided to surrender their OS monopoly in order to extend the life of their Office monopoly. But Windows is currently far too pervasive to make that calculation make sense.
Ah, Scotland. Since I don't haul the laptop with me when I go overseas, vacations in Scotland are always accompanied by a game of Hunt for Access. My favorite spot to date is in Broadford on the Isle of Skye. There's a gas -- er, petrol -- station there that seems to be the one big business on the main drag that includes a supermarket, a laundrette, a rental plance and (IIRC) a dentist. Stuffed back behind the laundrette are two coin-op internet-connected computers. A pocket full of coins and I was happy.
A good test should have identified some errors, especially if it blew up IMMEDIATELY.
Maybe not, if they had to install it directly to full-production status. It was a communication failure, so it might have been unforeseeable.
What I'd want to know would be, what was the risk mitigation strategy? Any time you tinker with mission-critical production systems, somebody should ask what to do if the entire box craps out. If it's a communication problem, maybe having a CD burner and a courier standing by would have eliminated the risk.
Or maybe it's been a slow news week and they wanted something interesting for tomorrow's paper.
How many software patents will really stand up to thourough scrutiny as being something other than obvious extensions of prior art? Microsoft depends on its patents to arrange cross-licensing deals with other companies, but if they start down this road their patent portfolio and their profit margins will be rapidly depleted by a barrage of lawsuits challenging their patents.
Worse still, the battle could put the whole question of software patents back on the table. If governments eliminate software patents, the entire portfolio goes poof.
Someday in the future, once people have stopped giggling
about how all telephones once were wired to the wall, they'll still have
trouble containing their laughter about laptop computers.
<SARCASM>
That's right, and cell phones are just a fad. After all, there are
phones all over the place, so why would anyone want to carry their own?
</SARCASM>
Computers keep shrinking and prices keep dropping. Why depend on a
remote site to host your desktop when you could keep the same data
in your watch,
jackknife or
wallet?
Well, as long as we're being obsessive-compulsive about this, it's supposed to be, "A robot must never harm a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm." I remember that because there was a story where humans had to work in a potentially hazardous situation, and the robots wouldn't permit it. So they made a limited run of robots with a weakened first law, omitting the second clause.
Of course, if you tinker with one part of a program, you know it's going to screw things up elsewhere. (Good thing too, or it would have been a dull story.)
Slashdot Mirror
These have been available from Thinkgeek for a while now. They also make a "travel version" without those fearsome weapons of mass destruction. (Meaning the scissors, nail file and that itty-bitty knife.) Not that the travel version is necessary, since the USB drive is removable.
The article does not say the company claiming copyright has conceded that the work is public domain, only that they're not pursuing the case against JibJab. It doesn't sound like they've really conceded much; they just don't want it in the court record that the song is now public domain. They're robably hoping to get a few more bucks out of it.
I was discussing this a while back with some Electric Vehicle wonks and there's a problem. Apparently direct use of alcohol (methanol or ethanol) on a fuel cell eventually "poisons" the membrane over time. It's okay for small electronics because it takes so long for the membrane to fail that it's still a viable option. But for big applications like cars that use so much fuel, it's not cost effective; the membrane fails too soon and is too expensive to replace. The Necar 5 which ran coast-to-coast used a reformer to convert methanol in order to obtain hydrogen.
Darl.
Could definitely be a downer if you're the next in line for that arcade game.
By having this case dismissed, Novell shuts down SCO's preferred line of attack. First of all, SCO will need to start over with a new suit, meaning more cash burn from SCO's rapidly depleting coffers. Second, it buys time for SCO's position on other fronts (like IBM's tenth counterclaim) to weaken. If IBM can prove there's no UNIX in Linux, the issue of who owns the UNIX copyrights becomes moot. Finally, it means that SCO will have to open a suit explicitly stating that they want to prove they own the copyrights, a very difficult position since the documentation doesn't seem to support that claim.
Remember, the job of Novell's lawyers is not to defend Linux. It is to defend Novell. It's only in the current circumstances that the two interests happen to coincide.
This has nothing to do with Linux, or IBM's motion for a preliminary injunction. IBM has asked the court to find that SCO has found no UNIX in Linux. SCO's "smoking gun" says they found UNIX in AIX. Gee, big surprise. That's why IBM pays licensing fees for AIX. All SCO is claiming is that they should have paid more. Of course Forbe's -- impartial reporters that they are -- can't resist a gratuitous jab at "Linux zealots", but Linux just is not involved here.
Nothing to see here, just SCO blowing their usual smoke.
to this article it looks like the latest model has gotten up to a six hour plus lifespan. Of course, it still costs a bundle.
I live on my laptop and it's an older IBM model, so the battery life is pretty rotten. My solution has just been to find a plug. If I'm on the road, I keep a power converter in the car and plug the laptop in so I can run at a full charge. It's also good for keeping the three-year-old entertained on a long car trip.
Nothing to see here. Just Darl's usual nonsense.
- Try to enforce the patent. Doing this risks having the patent invalidated, losing one of their trading cards. And the best they could hope for is to collect a little money until a workaround is found.
- Follow suit and release the patent for uses in Linux. Sure you won't make money off this, but you could still trade the patent with other companies for use of their patents.
The one fly in the ointment is any company (*cough*Microsoft*cough) that has a vested interest in seeing Linux fail. They might be willing to sacrifice some of their patent portfolio in order to make that happen. It also makes them number one on the patent examination hit parade.I suspect SCO (originally Caldera) wants to find a new name since they've destroyed any vestiges of goodwill attached to the name SCO. They'll probably wait until after the lawsuits, quietly change names and then seek a buyer for whatever is left of their business. They might even bring in new management chosen especially for their ability to convincingly express dismay with the sins of their predecessors.
Maybe I'm just a gadget freak but, frankly, I've never understood the problem. I read paper books and a few magazines as well, but don't much care how the words get in front of my eyeballs.
Is there a remedial test I can take to get my geek license back?
Which is why MS won't make a Linux version of office any time soon. If there was a Linux version of Office, one of the major roadblocks that holds corporations back from adopting Linux would be gone as well. If you can get all your old documents to run on cheaper Linux boxes than on Windows, there is little reason to keep upgrading both Office and Windows. MS would also lose the whole "cost of training" argument if there was a Linux version of Office. Your average user needs training to use the office suite, not the OS.
If Microsoft ever makes a Linux version of Office, it will mean that they have accepted that Linux is replacing Windows and they have decided to surrender their OS monopoly in order to extend the life of their Office monopoly. But Windows is currently far too pervasive to make that calculation make sense.
Ah, Scotland. Since I don't haul the laptop with me when I go overseas, vacations in Scotland are always accompanied by a game of Hunt for Access. My favorite spot to date is in Broadford on the Isle of Skye. There's a gas -- er, petrol -- station there that seems to be the one big business on the main drag that includes a supermarket, a laundrette, a rental plance and (IIRC) a dentist. Stuffed back behind the laundrette are two coin-op internet-connected computers. A pocket full of coins and I was happy.
(One of the eyewitnesses describes Judge Chabots as "a petite woman".)
What I'd want to know would be, what was the risk mitigation strategy? Any time you tinker with mission-critical production systems, somebody should ask what to do if the entire box craps out. If it's a communication problem, maybe having a CD burner and a courier standing by would have eliminated the risk.
Or maybe it's been a slow news week and they wanted something interesting for tomorrow's paper.
Worse still, the battle could put the whole question of software patents back on the table. If governments eliminate software patents, the entire portfolio goes poof.
Computers keep shrinking and prices keep dropping. Why depend on a remote site to host your desktop when you could keep the same data in your watch, jackknife or wallet?
Of course, if you tinker with one part of a program, you know it's going to screw things up elsewhere. (Good thing too, or it would have been a dull story.)