We already know Romney has an elevator for his cars and that he uses his wife's horse as a write-off for his taxes. We already know he is not just rich, but stinking filthy rich, richer than the last several Presidents combined. There is nothing extravagant that could feasibly be used by anyone to attack Romney, because the American public already sees him that way.
Cheating the Mormon church out of their tithe wouldn't piss off the voters, it's just embarrassing. But cheating the US Government out of the taxes that you owed? That would be a massive stain on his campaign.
Wait, you don't think a crime done for the purpose of influencing the outcome of the election for the POTUS is more serious than one that is done just to annoy someone or for financial gain?
That depends on how much damage it actually did.
How much of an impact did the email hack have on the election? Just about none. So yeah, while that kid was stupid and what he did was illegal, I think someone who actually stole millions of dollars from pensions is more serious.
How much of an impact would Romney's tax returns have? Well, I can't really say, as I haven't seen them. But it is customary for candidates (or even people vying for the party's nomination) to release tax returns. One could make the argument that Romney is trying to influence the election by going against what is customary.
Like it or not, prosecution of crime (like everything else we do) is going to have priorities assigned.
In my opinion, the priorities are all wrong. Currently the priority seems to be assigned based on who the victim was. So if your victim is famous and powerful, the victim is more likely to get justice.
Instead, I think that if the alleged perp is famous and powerful, they should be more likely to face justice.
Since Watergate was done under the orders of the most powerful man in the free world, it deserved to be prosecuted. And you might want to note that Nixon never served time for that crime.
I did something similar to this once. I pre-ordered Super Mario Galaxy 2 and had it shipped to my home. Problem was that it would be delivered two days after launch. My solution was to download the torrent and play it while waiting for my disc to come.
I have always wondered how these companies would react to such behavior by customers.
You are depriving me of the gasoline in the tank that you used while driving.
You are depriving me of road wear on my tires and brakes. And in my case, the clutch too.
And it was stolen even if you return it before I want it again. I am deprived of the ownership of the car while you have stolen it.
Now...if you had a maker bot that could print up a 3D copy of a car, and you filled it with your own gasoline and put on your own tires and brakes etc...then I would be 100% ok with that. Sure, make a copy of my car, I don't give a fuck.
So in other words, exactly what you quoted. Because it isn't a broad patent, it's okay for this combination of actions and gestures to be patented, since it's not hard to design around the patent.
I'm sorry but I still disagree. People did one finger scrolling before Apple, people did pinch to zoom before Apple, but Apple gets to patent the combination? In my opinion that's wrong.
I actually went and read that link. I'm assuming that the claims it presented "untangled" (i.e. without all the "the method in claim x" crap). Allow me to excerpt the parts I think are relevant, from the link you provided to The Verge.
- determining whether the event object invokes a scroll or gesture operation by distinguishing between a single input point applied to the touch-sensitive display that is interpreted as the scroll operation and two or more input points applied to the touch-sensitive display that are interpreted as the gesture operation; - responding to at least one scroll call, if issued, by scrolling a window having a view associated with the event object; and - responding to at least one gesture call, if issued, by scaling the view associated with the event object based on receiving the two or more input points in the form of the user input.
Ultimately, this boils down to patenting "scroll with one finger or pinch-to-zoom with two". All the other claims are generic stuff required to make any program (e.g. events, storage, etc). Google claims to get around the 915 patent in Jelly Bean by making one finger pan. A pan is two dimensional and therefore designs around the 915 claim.
So while it may technically be true that Apple has not patented "just" pinch-to-zoom, they have patented the combination of "one finger scroll, two finger pinch-to-zoom". Your argument seems to be that it's okay for Apple to patent the combination of these very basic and natural actions and gestures because this isn't that hard to design around?
I'm sorry but when you have to explicitly go out of your way to avoid doing natural things in order to avoid being sued for patent infringement, then patents have jumped the shark in a pretty big way. Like the 163 patent for "double tap to zoom (and resize text)" - another perfectly naturally way that humans interface with clickable objects, now forced to jump through ridiculous hoops covered in patenty fire.
removing an option that is cheaper suddenly makes that option more attractive or "necessary".
Kinda like banning the cheaper Samsung phones might suddenly make that option more attractive or "necessary"?
The judge has still to confirm it, though many commentators say that it would be exceptional if the judge overturned their verdict
Given the interviews with the foreman which suggest they failed to understand the instructions regarding 1) not punishing Samsung and 2) prior art, this should be interesting.
(btw, the tag you were looking for is "blockquote")
Eventually would have been implemented is still patentable
I disagree. IMO, if a technology's implementation is practically inevitable, then it qualifies as obvious and should not be patentable.
Patents are not meant for locking up inevitable progress by the first person who comes up with an idea. Patents are meant for locking up progress that would not otherwise happen without patent protection.
First, as others stated, Apple didn't make a retina display, they just put a fancy name on it. I hope you're not saying fancy names are innovative.
Second, do you think Apple would have retina displays without the display manufacturers doing the innovation?
Third, do you honestly believe that in the total absence of Apple, no company would have ever made a cell phone display with pixels that small? Or would smaller pixels naturally reflect the inevitable march of progress by display manufacturers?
A lot of people give credit to Apple for coming up with ideas that would most likely have fallen out of the technology naturally given some time. Had Apple never existed, touch screen phones would have still been created, probably at about the same time that they were with Apple. And eventually some manufacturer would have done slide to unlock (probably one day when some engineer was reading his phone on the toilet and noticed that he had to slide the bathroom door to unlock it...)
And when consumers gave positive feedback about this mechanism, other manufacturers would have implemented it. And then the user interface would become standardized, and using phones would be easier for everyone regardless of what manufacturer made their phone.
Dr. Jonas Salk was the man who came up with the polio vaccine. He could have patented it and become rich beyond his wildest dreams.
And yet he did not. In fact, when Ed Murrow interviewed him and asked "who owns the patent?", do you know what Dr. Salk's response was?
"No one. Could you patent the sun?"
Bless that man's heart. Saving his fellow human beings from a lifetime of paralysis - regardless of their gender, race, creed, or religion - was all the compensation he needed. Surely, if anyone rests in peace, it is him.
You know, I find it completely immoral that an insurance company might choose to deny payment for a necessary medical treatment...
and yet I find myself agreeing with you wholeheartedly that insurance companies shouldn't be obligated to pay for a disease that an individual acquired by intentionally denying routine vaccinations.
So when there is a US Judge on public record ruling such fines are cruel and unusual, how is it even possible for another judge to come along and uphold what legally is defined as cruel and unusual punishment?
The decision was appealed. The appeals court said that the original judge jumped the gun and went for the Constitutional question too fast, when he should have considered remittitur first. It was then sent back down the food chain for review.
However, the original judge retired, so a new judge was in place. The new judged denied remittitur, and then denied the Constitutional question.
Honestly, if you ask me, the Constitutional question should be first in EVERY single case.
I didn't necessarily count Brawl+ or Brawl- or other things that are basically running the Gecko code handler to hack up the game; though those too are pretty cool and I've contributed quite heavily to that scene.
However, Riivolution does not require HBC. And even if it did, I don't think Nintendo will never succeed at blocking HBC, either. We're talking about a company who had to release three system menu updates before they finally managed to plug the hole used by the Twilight Hack.
Have you ever heard of Riivolution? It allows games to load content from SD or even over WiFi. It has been used to make custom race tracks for Mario Kart, with zero piracy implications since Riivolution requires the original disc.
No one says you need to use the Wii to make mods, only that you need it to play them. I have seen someone make a conversion for Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World on the Wii that used the textures from precursor ToS on the GameCube.
I don't think reasonable people advocate knowing *everything*. On the contrary, we just want to know the potentially illegal and unethical stuff; witness protection and undercover cops are neither illegal or unethical. If the only reason a certain piece of information is classified is to prevent some power-tripper from having egg on his face or getting thrown into jail, that's abuse of secrecy power and deserves to be publicized.
Slashdot Mirror
We already know Romney has an elevator for his cars and that he uses his wife's horse as a write-off for his taxes. We already know he is not just rich, but stinking filthy rich, richer than the last several Presidents combined. There is nothing extravagant that could feasibly be used by anyone to attack Romney, because the American public already sees him that way.
Cheating the Mormon church out of their tithe wouldn't piss off the voters, it's just embarrassing. But cheating the US Government out of the taxes that you owed? That would be a massive stain on his campaign.
Wait, you don't think a crime done for the purpose of influencing the outcome of the election for the POTUS is more serious than one that is done just to annoy someone or for financial gain?
That depends on how much damage it actually did.
How much of an impact did the email hack have on the election? Just about none. So yeah, while that kid was stupid and what he did was illegal, I think someone who actually stole millions of dollars from pensions is more serious.
How much of an impact would Romney's tax returns have? Well, I can't really say, as I haven't seen them. But it is customary for candidates (or even people vying for the party's nomination) to release tax returns. One could make the argument that Romney is trying to influence the election by going against what is customary.
Even Santorum released four years of tax returns, and he wasn't even the nominee.
http://www.taxhistory.org/www/website.nsf/web/presidentialtaxreturns
Like it or not, prosecution of crime (like everything else we do) is going to have priorities assigned.
In my opinion, the priorities are all wrong. Currently the priority seems to be assigned based on who the victim was. So if your victim is famous and powerful, the victim is more likely to get justice.
Instead, I think that if the alleged perp is famous and powerful, they should be more likely to face justice.
Since Watergate was done under the orders of the most powerful man in the free world, it deserved to be prosecuted. And you might want to note that Nixon never served time for that crime.
I did something similar to this once. I pre-ordered Super Mario Galaxy 2 and had it shipped to my home. Problem was that it would be delivered two days after launch. My solution was to download the torrent and play it while waiting for my disc to come.
I have always wondered how these companies would react to such behavior by customers.
You are depriving me of the gasoline in the tank that you used while driving.
You are depriving me of road wear on my tires and brakes. And in my case, the clutch too.
And it was stolen even if you return it before I want it again. I am deprived of the ownership of the car while you have stolen it.
Now...if you had a maker bot that could print up a 3D copy of a car, and you filled it with your own gasoline and put on your own tires and brakes etc...then I would be 100% ok with that. Sure, make a copy of my car, I don't give a fuck.
So in other words, exactly what you quoted. Because it isn't a broad patent, it's okay for this combination of actions and gestures to be patented, since it's not hard to design around the patent.
I'm sorry but I still disagree. People did one finger scrolling before Apple, people did pinch to zoom before Apple, but Apple gets to patent the combination? In my opinion that's wrong.
I actually went and read that link. I'm assuming that the claims it presented "untangled" (i.e. without all the "the method in claim x" crap). Allow me to excerpt the parts I think are relevant, from the link you provided to The Verge.
Ultimately, this boils down to patenting "scroll with one finger or pinch-to-zoom with two". All the other claims are generic stuff required to make any program (e.g. events, storage, etc). Google claims to get around the 915 patent in Jelly Bean by making one finger pan. A pan is two dimensional and therefore designs around the 915 claim.
So while it may technically be true that Apple has not patented "just" pinch-to-zoom, they have patented the combination of "one finger scroll, two finger pinch-to-zoom". Your argument seems to be that it's okay for Apple to patent the combination of these very basic and natural actions and gestures because this isn't that hard to design around?
I'm sorry but when you have to explicitly go out of your way to avoid doing natural things in order to avoid being sued for patent infringement, then patents have jumped the shark in a pretty big way. Like the 163 patent for "double tap to zoom (and resize text)" - another perfectly naturally way that humans interface with clickable objects, now forced to jump through ridiculous hoops covered in patenty fire.
removing an option that is cheaper suddenly makes that option more attractive or "necessary".
Kinda like banning the cheaper Samsung phones might suddenly make that option more attractive or "necessary"?
The judge has still to confirm it, though many commentators say that it would be exceptional if the judge overturned their verdict
Given the interviews with the foreman which suggest they failed to understand the instructions regarding 1) not punishing Samsung and 2) prior art, this should be interesting.
(btw, the tag you were looking for is "blockquote")
People buy stuff mostly because it responds to a (perceived) need
So when the incandescent bulb was "banned", did people suddenly need a lot of them?
not because some judge in California thinks they stole something from Apple
Wow, Judge Koh said/thought that? I could have swore that only the jury had provided their verdict so far...
In effect, this was not a decision of 12 members of a jury but a decision of one expert convincing 11 non-experts.
Actually it was 9 jurors, not 12.
Eventually would have been implemented is still patentable
I disagree. IMO, if a technology's implementation is practically inevitable, then it qualifies as obvious and should not be patentable.
Patents are not meant for locking up inevitable progress by the first person who comes up with an idea. Patents are meant for locking up progress that would not otherwise happen without patent protection.
retina displays
First, as others stated, Apple didn't make a retina display, they just put a fancy name on it. I hope you're not saying fancy names are innovative.
Second, do you think Apple would have retina displays without the display manufacturers doing the innovation?
Third, do you honestly believe that in the total absence of Apple, no company would have ever made a cell phone display with pixels that small? Or would smaller pixels naturally reflect the inevitable march of progress by display manufacturers?
A lot of people give credit to Apple for coming up with ideas that would most likely have fallen out of the technology naturally given some time. Had Apple never existed, touch screen phones would have still been created, probably at about the same time that they were with Apple. And eventually some manufacturer would have done slide to unlock (probably one day when some engineer was reading his phone on the toilet and noticed that he had to slide the bathroom door to unlock it...)
And when consumers gave positive feedback about this mechanism, other manufacturers would have implemented it. And then the user interface would become standardized, and using phones would be easier for everyone regardless of what manufacturer made their phone.
That's about 5 pages per hour. 12 minutes per page.
It's also about 32 questions per hour, or one question about every 2 minutes
But in this case the fees include your seoul.
Society's bodies, society's choice.
Just to reinforce your point...
Dr. Jonas Salk was the man who came up with the polio vaccine. He could have patented it and become rich beyond his wildest dreams.
And yet he did not. In fact, when Ed Murrow interviewed him and asked "who owns the patent?", do you know what Dr. Salk's response was?
"No one. Could you patent the sun?"
Bless that man's heart. Saving his fellow human beings from a lifetime of paralysis - regardless of their gender, race, creed, or religion - was all the compensation he needed. Surely, if anyone rests in peace, it is him.
You know, I find it completely immoral that an insurance company might choose to deny payment for a necessary medical treatment...
and yet I find myself agreeing with you wholeheartedly that insurance companies shouldn't be obligated to pay for a disease that an individual acquired by intentionally denying routine vaccinations.
Ouch! The cognitive dissonance! It burrrns us!
So when there is a US Judge on public record ruling such fines are cruel and unusual, how is it even possible for another judge to come along and uphold what legally is defined as cruel and unusual punishment?
The decision was appealed. The appeals court said that the original judge jumped the gun and went for the Constitutional question too fast, when he should have considered remittitur first. It was then sent back down the food chain for review.
However, the original judge retired, so a new judge was in place. The new judged denied remittitur, and then denied the Constitutional question.
Honestly, if you ask me, the Constitutional question should be first in EVERY single case.
I didn't necessarily count Brawl+ or Brawl- or other things that are basically running the Gecko code handler to hack up the game; though those too are pretty cool and I've contributed quite heavily to that scene.
However, Riivolution does not require HBC. And even if it did, I don't think Nintendo will never succeed at blocking HBC, either. We're talking about a company who had to release three system menu updates before they finally managed to plug the hole used by the Twilight Hack.
Have you ever heard of Riivolution? It allows games to load content from SD or even over WiFi. It has been used to make custom race tracks for Mario Kart, with zero piracy implications since Riivolution requires the original disc.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sSawr1ESLk
No one says you need to use the Wii to make mods, only that you need it to play them. I have seen someone make a conversion for Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World on the Wii that used the textures from precursor ToS on the GameCube.
It has nothing to do with helping or not helping someone, it's the "being forced" to do something that is the problem.
Kinda like being forced to carry a baby that you don't want to term is the problem?
Yeah. It's called a marriage license.
I don't think reasonable people advocate knowing *everything*. On the contrary, we just want to know the potentially illegal and unethical stuff; witness protection and undercover cops are neither illegal or unethical. If the only reason a certain piece of information is classified is to prevent some power-tripper from having egg on his face or getting thrown into jail, that's abuse of secrecy power and deserves to be publicized.