Yes, IAAL. I switched careers into IT a few years ago. Why? It is a long story.
First, reconsider becoming a lawyer. Consider carefully the advice of lawyers who are no longer practicing -- there are many of them. Ask them why they left the law. You might start here.
Then, if you still think that you want to study and practice law, find a law library and the intellectual property (IP) section therein. Many local bar associations have small law libraries, and law schools tend to have larger ones. The definitive work on copyright used to be Nimmer on copyright, which will provide more citations to case law than you will know what to do with. The librarian (or perhaps the lawyers and paralegals using the library) will be able to direct you to the cases cited. Nimmer probably has his counterparts in related IP fields (e.g., patents, trademarks, tradenames, and trade secrets), but I do not know the titles off hand. These counterpart books will also provide citations, both to case law and to other sources of authority, such as statutes, regulations, and treaties. If the library has such counterparts, they will probably be in the IP section of the library, along with Nimmer. The books containing the cases are often elsewhere in the library, not in the IP section.
Third, consider your choice of law school carefully. Most law schools offer only one, introductory course on IP law, but some law schools (e.g., George Mason University in Northern Virginia, near D.C.) provide several advanced courses beyond that introductory course. Having those additional courses could make a difference in determining whether you receive the job offers that you want.
Fourth, remember that most lawyers practicing patent law have a technical background, e.g., an engineering or science degree. You would probably need to have considerable technical knowledge in order to practice patent law. Sometimes, you will also need to pass the patent bar exam (cannot remember the official name of this exam) as well as the bar exam of the jurisdictions in which you wish to practice.
Last, while in law school, consider taking at least one course on federal income taxation and perhaps an additional course devoted to the taxation of property transactions (sometimes called "capital transactions"). Nearly every business transaction involving IP is certain to have important, complex tax consequences. You need to know those consequences in order to help the client plan the transaction.
This is one of the most difficult and important questions that web developers face today. It is important because, in the future, most web content (of businesses, associations, and large institutions, at least) will be managed with content management systems (CMS's), and it is difficult for obvious reasons. I have followed CMS literature for years, and have seen only a few articles on this matter, of which this is one of the best, although far too brief and general. See also "Fear of migration."
Interestingly, none of these "migration articles" on web sites that are explicitly devoted to CMS matters (e.g., CMSwatch.com, cmsReview.com) seem to characterize this problem as relating to Extraction, Transformation, and Loading (ETL), raising the possibility that their authors are ignorant of the many ETL tools that are available. In the open source world, these tools include Octopus and Jetstream. Of course, Perl programmers do not call this process "ETL," but, rather, simply "data munging."
A prior Slashdot story on "Transferring data 'tween databases" (posted 14 April 2003) might interest you. I cannot post a link to it, however, because Slashdot's search engine is currently down.
Finally, EMC just bought Documentum, the CMS that you are considering. EMC is primarily a storage company, and I cannot help but wonder how CMS fits into their storage strategy.
Furthermore, the USA would face stiff opposition (in the UN) from the French, who would dub the USA "Uncle Spam." Moreover, the legitimacy of the invasion would ultimately turn on whether the anti-spam coalition finds "weapons of ass destruction" (WoAD), which are weight-loss programs that the spammers advertize via spam. If the coalition does not find any WoAD, then critics of the invasion would deem it to be immoral and without foundation in international law. Finally, the coalition would need to capture the arch-spammer, "SpamDamn" Hussein, in order to halt the "gorilla" attacks that the spammers would wage after their country had fallen to the infidel coaltion. The war would not truly be over until SpamDamn is placed in the "Spammer Slammer."
The term "Echo" is an unfortunate choice of name -- it conflicts with another, new project that aims to "develop a common syntax for syndication & archiving, and an editing API." And, of these two projects, the one to which I have linked is by far the more important and likely to be far more seminal (once they have finished their work). Some of the people behind the "syndication Echo" (as distinguished from the "web app Echo" mentioned above) are very smart, e.g., Sam Ruby, Dare Obasanjo (aka "Carnage4Life" here on Slashdot) and Evan Williams, IIRC. The syndication Echo apparently grew out of the blogging API's (see bottom of page).
Given that most Slashdot posters tend to be very pro-privacy, I'm very surprised that the majority here seem to be against this bill which looks like something to promote privacy.
[snip]
So, I'm confused. Why don't people think this bill is a good thing?
Perhaps this sentiment springs from the fact that most Slashdotters are also pro-piracy -- they hate to pay a reasonable amount for information or intellectual property (IP), even if such payment is the best means of ensuring the continued production (or availability) of the information or IP.
Another reason may be that most Slashdotters probably have not taken the time to read the bill carefully or to consider its implications in a calm state of mind. The majority of the anti-bill sentiments expressed hereon are of the "knee-jerk" variety.
I'm told that you can sue the government [in order] to [force it to] prosecute a case.
No, you cannot sue the government (either federal, state, or local) in order to force a prosecutor to either file a suit (either criminal or civil) or bring a case to trial. Prosecutorial discretion is amazingly broad. Different rules apply to judges -- they can sometimes be forced to take action.
This development reminds me of the "neutron bomb" that the defense establishment developed in the late seventies. It was a small, nuclear warhead meant for use on the battlefield (i.e., against soldiers and tanks, etc.) that killed not through a combination of blast-&-heat (that would destroy structures) but, rather, by unleashing a lethal flood of neutrons that destroyed the cell walls of nearly all animals (humans included). The neutrons could penetrate tank armor and the walls of buildings, killing tank crews and infantry inside the buildings, respectively. Think Star Trek, First Generation, the episode where Bones says, "Jim, every cell in his body has been disrupted!!". The bomb did not, however, destroy as many structures as a traditional, tactical nuclear weapon.
The defense establishment tried to sell the virutes of the neutron bomb with this pithy point: "It destroys humans but leaves buildings intact," minimizing collateral damage. Aping this thought, in college, some of my acquaintances developed a powerful alcoholic mixture that they dubbed "neutron punch." Their rationale? "It destroys your mind but leaves your body intact," they said.
When are Java developers going to wake up and realize that Sun Microsystems is irrelevant because Sun does not understand the open source revolution? Some developers (e.g., Jason Hunter, author of the O'Reilly on Java servlets) apparently have already done so, but most seem to continue to think that Sun's views on Java are important and relevant. Certain large IT companies have apparently already awakened, too. For example, IBM did not bother to rent a booth at this year's "Java One" convention, Sun's annual Java shindig, suggesting that IBM understands that Sun is now irrelevant and that Java can (and, perhaps, should) evolve without Sun's continued domineering.
Furthermore, the XML project of the Apache Software Founcation is hard at work on Batik, a Java-based toolkit for applications or applets that want to use images in the SVG format.
It appears our reviewer has fallen under a common misconception.
Java != JavaScript
Right. And the presence of that misconception suggests that the reveiwer is not well informed. If you want an informed review of this book, you should probably look elsewhere.
BTW...slashdot has been ignoring this story for months, no doubt because they would rather not offend possible Indian [and] Chinese readers. Well, they are selling us out, just [as] our politicians [are].
I agree. I am amazed that Slashdot editors have not posted more such stories, given the depth and length of the technology recession. Among technologists, at this moment, this topic is one of the hottest, hotter even than stories regarding P2P, file-sharing methods, or the RIAA.
I could not find an FAQ on the site explaining how Osnippets.org differs from other repositories of open source code. There are many such repositories these days. Why would I choose to spend time on Osnippets instead of one of the others? Could someone please enlighten me?
Could this be a sign that a serious contender for President (tied for first for the nomination in the latest polls) has his head screwed on right about copyright law?
An alternative way of viewing this development is that it reinforces the suspicion that, politically, Lessig is well to the left. Of the liberal Presidential aspirants, Dean is perhaps the furthest to the left.
BTW, have you noticed that an awful lot of smart people have low Slashdot user ID numbers? Tim's is 2229. OTOH, other smart people have fairly high user ID numbers, e.g., Paul Everitt, one of the smartest software developers on the face of the earth, has a user ID of 595824.
we're asking for input on what topics would be of sky-high fascination right now.
I cannot think of any topic of greater current interest to the average, non-technical person (ANP) than CMS. The interest in CMS's is soaring right now because ANP's want to be able to create & maintain a website without the intervention of a web professional. That's just one of the benefits of a good CMS. Others include the handling of workflow (e.g., ensuring that Editor B receives the article/document from Editor A on time and in correct form, so that Editor B can, in turn, meet her own deadlines), versioning, deployment, etc. An example of a good, general purpose, open source CMS is OpenCMS.
monthly seminars that focus on bleeding edge technology,
IMO, a good CMS represents plenty of bleeding-edge technology, especially with respect to software development. There are many CMS's, but few good ones, a testament to the difficulty of writing a good one. Furthermore, administering a CMS by yourself is a lot of work. You need to know web administration, network admin, RDBMS admin (at least rudimentary), and adminstration of the CMS software itself.
presented by vendors' engineers,
You can probably find a sales person (and sales engineer) for any one of the many proprietary CMS's, but why bother? The open source CMS's will soon vanquish them. You may be able to find a local person knowledgeable as to open source CMS's by consulting your local users' groups (e.g., Linux users' groups, Web administrators' group).
Struts is a web application development framework (WADF), of which there are many. The proliferation of open source WADF's prompted Anthony Eden to begin his Wafer Project, which aims to compare
the many open source web application frameworks which are available using a common example application. This research project is designed to compare the application frameworks on a level field by specifying an example application so that the application features become irrelevent and the merits of each framework becomes the focus.
Anthony could probably use some help.
You can find many links related to Struts on Ted Husted's page, because he's the lead developer for Struts and the author of the O'Reilly thereon.
In the opinion of some of the smarter Java developers, Struts is no longer the best of the WADF's in the Java world. Some of them seem to prefer WebWork, which is now part of OpenSymphony. Debate over Struts is raging.
I have never before complained about the stupidity of some of these "Ask Slashdot" topics, but, this time, I cannot hold my tongue. Slashdot editors, please exercise better judgment.
Re:ADHD=Bored Person Syndrome -- not!
on
Working with ADHD?
·
· Score: 1
I have not met one person who has REAL ADHD, meaning a person who can't even focus on doing what they like to do.
People with ADHD somehow manage to spend hours watching cartoons, playing video games, hacking on the internet, coming to sites like slashdot, so on and so forth.
I diagnosed myself as having ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) in 1995. Before I began taking medication (reboxetine), my ability to concentrate even while in engaged in activities that gave me pleasure (e.g., playing computer games) was poor. I was able to concentrate only about 20% of the time, daydreaming the rest of the time. IOW, I would concentrate for about 20-30 seconds and then daydream for 80-100 seconds, concentrate for about 20 seconds, then daydream again.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, IAAL. I switched careers into IT a few years ago. Why? It is a long story.
First, reconsider becoming a lawyer. Consider carefully the advice of lawyers who are no longer practicing -- there are many of them. Ask them why they left the law. You might start here.
Then, if you still think that you want to study and practice law, find a law library and the intellectual property (IP) section therein. Many local bar associations have small law libraries, and law schools tend to have larger ones. The definitive work on copyright used to be Nimmer on copyright, which will provide more citations to case law than you will know what to do with. The librarian (or perhaps the lawyers and paralegals using the library) will be able to direct you to the cases cited. Nimmer probably has his counterparts in related IP fields (e.g., patents, trademarks, tradenames, and trade secrets), but I do not know the titles off hand. These counterpart books will also provide citations, both to case law and to other sources of authority, such as statutes, regulations, and treaties. If the library has such counterparts, they will probably be in the IP section of the library, along with Nimmer. The books containing the cases are often elsewhere in the library, not in the IP section.
Third, consider your choice of law school carefully. Most law schools offer only one, introductory course on IP law, but some law schools (e.g., George Mason University in Northern Virginia, near D.C.) provide several advanced courses beyond that introductory course. Having those additional courses could make a difference in determining whether you receive the job offers that you want.
Fourth, remember that most lawyers practicing patent law have a technical background, e.g., an engineering or science degree. You would probably need to have considerable technical knowledge in order to practice patent law. Sometimes, you will also need to pass the patent bar exam (cannot remember the official name of this exam) as well as the bar exam of the jurisdictions in which you wish to practice.
Last, while in law school, consider taking at least one course on federal income taxation and perhaps an additional course devoted to the taxation of property transactions (sometimes called "capital transactions"). Nearly every business transaction involving IP is certain to have important, complex tax consequences. You need to know those consequences in order to help the client plan the transaction.
Here's the link to the prior Slashdot story.
Interestingly, none of these "migration articles" on web sites that are explicitly devoted to CMS matters (e.g., CMSwatch.com, cmsReview.com) seem to characterize this problem as relating to Extraction, Transformation, and Loading (ETL), raising the possibility that their authors are ignorant of the many ETL tools that are available. In the open source world, these tools include Octopus and Jetstream. Of course, Perl programmers do not call this process "ETL," but, rather, simply "data munging."
A prior Slashdot story on "Transferring data 'tween databases" (posted 14 April 2003) might interest you. I cannot post a link to it, however, because Slashdot's search engine is currently down.
Finally, EMC just bought Documentum, the CMS that you are considering. EMC is primarily a storage company, and I cannot help but wonder how CMS fits into their storage strategy.
Furthermore, the USA would face stiff opposition (in the UN) from the French, who would dub the USA "Uncle Spam." Moreover, the legitimacy of the invasion would ultimately turn on whether the anti-spam coalition finds "weapons of ass destruction" (WoAD), which are weight-loss programs that the spammers advertize via spam. If the coalition does not find any WoAD, then critics of the invasion would deem it to be immoral and without foundation in international law. Finally, the coalition would need to capture the arch-spammer, "SpamDamn" Hussein, in order to halt the "gorilla" attacks that the spammers would wage after their country had fallen to the infidel coaltion. The war would not truly be over until SpamDamn is placed in the "Spammer Slammer."
A related site is that of Accuracy in Media, which points out the many biases in mainstream media.
The term "Echo" is an unfortunate choice of name -- it conflicts with another, new project that aims to "develop a common syntax for syndication & archiving, and an editing API." And, of these two projects, the one to which I have linked is by far the more important and likely to be far more seminal (once they have finished their work). Some of the people behind the "syndication Echo" (as distinguished from the "web app Echo" mentioned above) are very smart, e.g., Sam Ruby, Dare Obasanjo (aka "Carnage4Life" here on Slashdot) and Evan Williams, IIRC. The syndication Echo apparently grew out of the blogging API's (see bottom of page).
Perhaps this sentiment springs from the fact that most Slashdotters are also pro-piracy -- they hate to pay a reasonable amount for information or intellectual property (IP), even if such payment is the best means of ensuring the continued production (or availability) of the information or IP.
Another reason may be that most Slashdotters probably have not taken the time to read the bill carefully or to consider its implications in a calm state of mind. The majority of the anti-bill sentiments expressed hereon are of the "knee-jerk" variety.
No, you cannot sue the government (either federal, state, or local) in order to force a prosecutor to either file a suit (either criminal or civil) or bring a case to trial. Prosecutorial discretion is amazingly broad. Different rules apply to judges -- they can sometimes be forced to take action.
The defense establishment tried to sell the virutes of the neutron bomb with this pithy point: "It destroys humans but leaves buildings intact," minimizing collateral damage. Aping this thought, in college, some of my acquaintances developed a powerful alcoholic mixture that they dubbed "neutron punch." Their rationale? "It destroys your mind but leaves your body intact," they said.
When are Java developers going to wake up and realize that Sun Microsystems is irrelevant because Sun does not understand the open source revolution? Some developers (e.g., Jason Hunter, author of the O'Reilly on Java servlets) apparently have already done so, but most seem to continue to think that Sun's views on Java are important and relevant. Certain large IT companies have apparently already awakened, too. For example, IBM did not bother to rent a booth at this year's "Java One" convention, Sun's annual Java shindig, suggesting that IBM understands that Sun is now irrelevant and that Java can (and, perhaps, should) evolve without Sun's continued domineering.
Yes, it is. GEICO is an American company that writes insurance policies for cars (automobiles).
U.S. jobs jumping ship -- Cheap overseas labor is not just for manufacturers any more -- is your job headed offshore too?
SVG is much more than a competitor to Flash or other proprietary formats.
SVG is actually much broader in scope than Flash, PDF, or other proprietary formats, as aptly pointed out by Paul Presod at SVG Open 2003.
Furthermore, the XML project of the Apache Software Founcation is hard at work on Batik, a Java-based toolkit for applications or applets that want to use images in the SVG format.
Right. And the presence of that misconception suggests that the reveiwer is not well informed. If you want an informed review of this book, you should probably look elsewhere.
I agree. I am amazed that Slashdot editors have not posted more such stories, given the depth and length of the technology recession. Among technologists, at this moment, this topic is one of the hottest, hotter even than stories regarding P2P, file-sharing methods, or the RIAA.
OK, I understand that much, but how is your site different from, say, the SourceForge snippet repository, the many PHP repositories, HotScripts, CPAN, or Vaults of Parnassus (for Python code). There are many repositories available.
I could not find an FAQ on the site explaining how Osnippets.org differs from other repositories of open source code. There are many such repositories these days. Why would I choose to spend time on Osnippets instead of one of the others? Could someone please enlighten me?
An alternative way of viewing this development is that it reinforces the suspicion that, politically, Lessig is well to the left. Of the liberal Presidential aspirants, Dean is perhaps the furthest to the left.
http://slashdot.org/~tadghin/
BTW, have you noticed that an awful lot of smart people have low Slashdot user ID numbers? Tim's is 2229. OTOH, other smart people have fairly high user ID numbers, e.g., Paul Everitt, one of the smartest software developers on the face of the earth, has a user ID of 595824.
I cannot think of any topic of greater current interest to the average, non-technical person (ANP) than CMS. The interest in CMS's is soaring right now because ANP's want to be able to create & maintain a website without the intervention of a web professional. That's just one of the benefits of a good CMS. Others include the handling of workflow (e.g., ensuring that Editor B receives the article/document from Editor A on time and in correct form, so that Editor B can, in turn, meet her own deadlines), versioning, deployment, etc. An example of a good, general purpose, open source CMS is OpenCMS.
IMO, a good CMS represents plenty of bleeding-edge technology, especially with respect to software development. There are many CMS's, but few good ones, a testament to the difficulty of writing a good one. Furthermore, administering a CMS by yourself is a lot of work. You need to know web administration, network admin, RDBMS admin (at least rudimentary), and adminstration of the CMS software itself.
You can probably find a sales person (and sales engineer) for any one of the many proprietary CMS's, but why bother? The open source CMS's will soon vanquish them. You may be able to find a local person knowledgeable as to open source CMS's by consulting your local users' groups (e.g., Linux users' groups, Web administrators' group).
No, Chuck Cavaness wrote the O'Reilly book, "Programming Jakarta Struts." I apologize for the error.
You can find many links related to Struts on Ted Husted's page, because he's the lead developer for Struts and the author of the O'Reilly thereon.
In the opinion of some of the smarter Java developers, Struts is no longer the best of the WADF's in the Java world. Some of them seem to prefer WebWork, which is now part of OpenSymphony. Debate over Struts is raging.
Check out an attempted improvement to Struts.
I have never before complained about the stupidity of some of these "Ask Slashdot" topics, but, this time, I cannot hold my tongue. Slashdot editors, please exercise better judgment.
The parent post is simply over-rated.