Posts by gimbal 259 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Dec 2009
...and uselessly entangles companies, requiring them to spend substantial legal resources, in this bent-up patent system as it's been let to develop, to this day.
So who will be the first congressperson to put a plank of patent reform into his/her platform?
Facebook's censorship is probably not based on random or exhaustive searches - it probably works on activation by prudish commentards clicking a 'report' button. Incidentally, there are privacy controls for photos and other user-created content, at the site.
Facebook is protecting their bottom line. Maybe they could re-word their terms of service, to make it more flexible for consenting adults, without introducing threats for children, but from their point of view, why should they even try to pull that brass ring? What they have has worked so far. Their ToS is not impeding their cash flow.
Maybe they could reword it within those outer limits - maybe.
Obviously, though, if anyone would be concerned about it as to go bed angry at night ...there's MySpace, already up and running, among yay-many other social networking sites. That, and there's plenty of open web real estate out there, upon which one could venture forth into the wild, woolly unknown, so as to create one's own social networking startup - however BBS-like it may or may not turn out to be.
Respectfully, I'm sure that the person they interviewed for this story must've been flattered for the attention. That, in itself, could be a warning sign, as far as the credulity of the presumed science involved - but, I digress.
Reading a couple of the comments, here, it at least adds an interesting point of view about how we perceive what we see. The suggestion that retinal images are two-dimensional, that sounds spot on. I don't believe it really makes it "3D" when the two "2D" images are combined, though - it's just that we perceive depth, as a result of (presumably) how the brain processes the subtle differences between the two visual fields, that meeting the the left and the right retinas, respectively.
I wonder if they've really understood depth perception, enough to emulate it with a computer system - if that would be their approach? How else, then, might they try to emulate depth perception and motion perception? Presumably, one would need to have mastered the emulation of both manners of perception, with silicon kit - and probably a host of some other things, which don't come into the picture, here, but would work out to be necessary, there - in order to perform such a task as to drive a car, successfully, down a highway, with a computer at the wheel.
But hey, who am I to stand in the way of a perhaps-naive dream, as such?...
Mine's the coat with nothing science-fiction related in its pocket. Cheers.
That man's motivation to loose weight - starting at 300+ pounds - his motivation is: So that he can fit himself into an amusement park ride, but - more special than that - it's a Harry Potter amusement park ride.
o m g.
To each their own... I hope it works out for him. Besides that I'm sure it would make for quite the touchy-feely "human interest" piece, on local news, I just hope it works out for that man's health. Geez.
The hearing might've been scheduled, before Craig's List made their recent move - just that the subject of the hearing had to be adjusted, following those recent actions undertaken by the part of Craig's List, on top of their having provided - wasn't it said, by El Reg? then for some time previously - a lawyer team for investigating all the lot of advertisements for cedulity, themselves.
Seems to me that they have guns to stick by, so if I was them, I wouldn't be worried. ;)
...or in marketing, either - as closely as marketing and politics do intermingle, on practical and conceptual levels.
Microsoft, for instance, is certainly one of the most politically correct companies around. Granted, they take some hand in fashioning their own political correctness, but that's what you get when you're teamed with perhaps the most famous millionaire known in popular culture, these days - political clout. Hopefully they'll be responsible with it, as a company.
If such completely off-the-wall comments by Linux supporters would lead to there becoming a clear intersection of politics into Linux development, I'm afraid that the big software-hippy party may well run into some hard times.
I'm just sayin', let's all try to be more responsible about our political statements, before that ever comes to a crux, and before it serves to erode existing grounds for Linux support.
You know, folks, I've just noticed that the Google Instant feature closely resembles an HTML-framed approach to such as can be already accomplished in the URL bar of a Google Chrome web browser - and that was around, and was from Google, before everyone started voicing their opinions about Google Instant.
Like, when I type "History" in the Google Chrome URL bar, Chrome suggests to me a certain number of possible search results - including, URLs for The History Channel, which I believe I have never visited, in the entire browser history insofar as it would be recorded in this one web browser.
So, Google has simply carried that functionality out of the Chrome web browser, as a logical extension of that actually rather nice search functionality.
Now, if only their algorithms will get better at predicting my intentions.... Google, verily thou must read my mind yet! ><
...or the spirit of something, at least. Perhaps he may have also been a man having had way too many energy drinks, that day.
I'm afraid, though, that it may be just another example of the grandiose modern political drama, recently being played out here, on every corner, in the States.
For one thing, we can thank the likes of Fox News for amping every neoconservative's pulse about things,. recently - to analogous results, I'm quite sure.
Hey, let's just forget about it and sing (to the tune of, "The Love Boat" theme song): The Faaaail Booooat soon will be making another run / The Faaaail Booooat ... promises something *special* for everyone ... set a course for adventure, your mind on a new world order.....
Hey, maybe the rock band Ministry will be able to make some sense out of such political spectacles, in due time. I think, myself, that it's just some more horrible melodrama, honestly.
There's movie potential, in the story. I bet the bloke could even strike a deal, about it. I see the States' own Robert De Niro cracking safes and expunging their contents, only to leave a full slab of bacon deposited in the vault - a dramedy!
The big case comes when - in an epic dramatic inversion - when De Niro attempts to pilfer the contents of the Honey Baked Ham treasury vault, only to deposit a small stack of $20 bills, in place of the porky products.
Hey, it's modern drama, "anything goes."
"We own Java" is the message they seek to convey. Unfortunately, they may well not be the best stewards of the Java core API and broader library base - but time will tell whether any presently unknown circumstances may eventually serve to resolve that.
The FSF's response, I'm afraid, is merely an attempt at piggybacking their own agenda onto the fundamental issues being actually called into light, with the lawsuit.
Don't get me wrong, I love the principles embodied of successful free open-source software projects, such as the Linux kernel and the broader base of true-to-FOSS-principles Linux distributions (including Ubuntu). I'm sure that the approaches that the said projects have taken, to their successes, would not have included:: Conflation of principally unrelated issues, however.
I feel that I can say that in good conscience, though I'm not personally aware of the exacting details of the lawsuit - such details that will have to be addressed, towards any useful end (or not) in the courts.
As far as predicting Google's next move: I wonder if the lawsuit would disappear, if Google was to simply agree to license an Oracle-branded Java release, for release - in turn - on all Android platforms? Surely, Ovrakill could've taken another approach to as much - any approach becoming to actual friendly business relations, for instance - *if* they would recognize that objective, in the matters.
Maybe Google can still actually save the situation, by giving the bully some scrap of their lunch, already.
I'm sure that calmer heads may yet prevail, about the matters.
Now, a beer for all the platitudes. Cheers.
t sounds like Apple is interposing themselves as a quality assurance firm, between the software developer and the user - and it's Apple's ball, Apple's bat, and (in Apple's own views) Apple's own baseball diamond, so they set the rules about how people get to play on the field, if at all.
If it's not hardly a democratic approach, but it's not a government either. In Apple's view - even the customer's own iPhone is still Apple territory, and King Jobs reigns ><
I think that it would naturally bear some contrast to the policies used, on other mobile platforms, in implementing each one's major (i.e vendor-provided) approach to the "app store" pattern.
In that, I'm familiar with BlackBerry App World, as a user of the same It seems to me that BB App World would is using a completely democratic policy, there, simply supporting availability of applications, on the platform.
Though I've yet to find any applications providing "mature rated" content, there, I've not set out to find such, either - save for one curiosity-compelled search for a Playboy app's description, a search that yielded a description of an application not even hardly risque.
Even so, BB App World isn't the only place one can go to - given an "out of the box" BlackBerry - as to install applications on the same.
I presume that the case may be quite similar, on the Android and Maemo platforms.
Back to discussing Apple, specifically: I think their policy can be read as it being an odd development after recent ideas about "intellectual property rights".
So long as they don't go into real estate, I guess I'm alright with it....
Anyone else up for increasing the minimum wage to $12 per hour? Kidding!
To some extent, I believe that happiness may be in the eye of the beholder - to some extent, but certainly not to any absolute extent. I just hope people don't suggest as if the study indicated that happiness revolved entirely around an annual income of that-much-or-greater (regionally, even?)
If happiness is at all in the eye of the beholder, mine's the one with an urban blindfold in the pocket.
There's too much political legacy* invested in global warming speculations, far too much for people to hear the basic of the science of the matter over the din of loud opinion. Good luck, though! Perhaps some folks in the political hotbeds of the world will eventually be able to make some reasonable sense out of news like this.
* including "warm fuzzy" legacy, the unknown factor in so many popular decisions...
Mine's the one with the Thoreau book in the pocket.
She gets payed to lay on a bed in her undies, with a phone in her hand - and may I suggest, the average punter probably isn't going to be examining her to count her woody rings.
Now, as for whether that photo would make anyone more likely to buy any phones being advertised with as much, I cannot fathom. It looks to me like nothing more than a cover for a cheap skin 'flic. Even that it would be presented in an article about mobile phone marketing, I still cannot fit the two together.
Maybe if they tossed in a free six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon, that would up the sales.
Hey, they could even have the signboards play the tune of that Eminem song, W.T.P - now tell me I can't market it better than Nokia? ><
Here, you get sued for proving something like that, to the public. There, they put it on TV.
I imagine that, there, there must be a lot fewer anxiety disorders going around, as well - but that's just plain old WOT, I suppose.
Mine's the one with a cuckoo clock in the pocket.
"Real businesses get paid by customers, not lawsuits"
Indeed.
Has the author of the article ever considered writing a book about business ethics? Perhaps it could serve to do some genuine good, at least for some schools of thought.
I for one welcome our comprehensively rational leaders. They're in short availability, after all.
Well, that's rich. It sounds to me like they've made a personal vendetta out of it.
Is that some acceptable non-profit work, then? I find it difficult to believe that it ever could be, except if in some strange looking-glass world where such a ridiculous piece of work as that mud-slinging campaign could be deemed "worthy":
Believe me or not, that kind of nonsensical semblance-of-work is not accepted everywhere, in the states.
The Arctic: Favorite bullseye for defunct satellites ?
I wonder what its remains looked like, when it was impacting the ice? Seriously, though, there could be some sort of an eXtreme nonsense TV potential in this, if only they knew...
Paris, because like mater is to antimatter, so is science to pop-nouveau celebrity.
I mean, they could've said something like, "Hey, creeps, put down that fried chicken and get your water wings on", and "Ahhh forget that, d-bags at the tower clicked the wrong button while they were Facebooking"
That might've been more fun, though, admittedly.
...probably not as classic as the style of the Monty Python crew, though.
I can understand their wanting to make a niche out of legacy systems, if for no other reason, then to simply have a niche to stick their feet in. I only hope, for Dell's sake, that their customers won't come to view the performance of their own legacy systems as reflecting on the performance of kit installed from/by Dell. I also hope it does'n turn into a way to invite growing pains into their customers' systems.
Mine's the one with the Whirlpool label on the lapel.
There's something fishy in this, and none too objective: "Whether they would be prepared to accept road pricing as long as there was no overall increase in the amount paid by motorists as a whole". It appears, to me, that such would be a leading question.
What on earth is "the amount paid by motorists as a whole" supposed to mean? and by whose reckoning, then?
In my blatantly subjective response: Suggesting as if no more money was going to be spent by individual motorists, in asking whether motorists would like to spend more money, it makes no sense to me, but I can see that it's a trick that some might not be caught to notice.
Speaking pragmatically, about toll roads: Here in the states, I've driven through some of Chicago, where toll roads are a very common occurrence. They've set up some sort of probably-RFID-based architecture, where motorists who have the appropriate equipment can just slide right on through the toll booth, and other motorists must slow and either pull a ticket at the start of the extent of the toll region, or pay the fee, at the end of the extent. It's mildly obnoxious, and lead me to instruct my GPS mapper to use the "avoid highways" option - I'm not even sure how they've managed to put city-local toll booths on an interstate highway, but it's obviously been in place for a while.
If they're going to put in more toll booths in the UK, using fishy survey questions to excuse it by is only a waste of time and *more* money. I wish, for the sake of our friends not in government on the big island, that our friends in government on the big island would be simply more straightforward.
:muted YAY!:
I only hope that McAllister's statements will serve to finally inform the Oracle staff community of the gaping blind-spots in their policies so far - truly.
and here's to the recently resigned of the Oracle holdings! Cheers!
:scratches head:
Hey really sees that much in it?
Ok, maybe at least *that* guy has something genuine going on, at Microsoft HQ. Or he's just confused. I'm not sure which it could be, but *I* don't need to learn more about why, there, at least.
I for one did not welcome the systems-megalomaniacal company as it was....
I'm with the opt-out crowd. If it's an *optional* feature, then I can wish Godspeed to the Googermeisters, on their ongoing innovations.
(If was not implemented as an optional feature, then I might find myself too blunted in the eyes, by it, too much to utter even a single response. To hedge for that option: In which case, I say, "Talk about shock marketing...")
I'm sure it'll be optional, though. Cheers.
Mine's the one with gopher:// on the lapel
Methinks it stinks, serving to introduce a set of ludicrous arguments, wasting tax money on the RFID infrastructure, and expanding the nanny-state purveyance of government. (I wonder who got sold, first, by the RFID systems contractors, on that one? How on earth could it have otherwise been brought into a city council meeting?)
Case in point, on the ridiculous arguments: Have they ever thought that some people really don't want to recycle? And should they be forced to, then? It's a silly question, but an earnest one, for the circumstances.
As far as the program, itself, goes, what are the actual numbers on their recycling program - not counting any qualitative kneejerk responses - the actual numbers, besides in the paychecks for the recycling center workers? (and not counting the warm fuzzy "environmental goodwill" effect, which is so tough to put a dollar value to, as Al Gore no doubt would know)
It's silly.
...not being sure how large the Swift Tuttle debris cloud may be, in relation to the revolution of the earth, along the ecliptic, but being hopeful about it...
To get a clear view, from where I'm at, I'd set out on a trail at one of the local lakes. The state parks dept has set up a scenic-vista platform, on one of the hilltops along the trail. It seemed that it might make for a decent vantage point, not accounting for the light pollution from the habitations and businesses of the city at the lake.
I got about a mile down the trail, when the clouds rolled in, with accompanying thunder and lightning. It hasn't let loose much rain, so far, but it may as well.
Oh the joys of apparently living under the jesttream.
Mine's the one with the built-in hydration system.
That portable data center could be located anywhere that would be convenient, in terms of constant power distribution, constant network access, and occasional (I presume, rare) physical maintenance access. Aesthetically and practically, It could fit in nicely with some ground-floor HVAC equipment for a building site - just be sure the maintenance folks would be aware that it's not for lawn-mower storage ;)
Fine fine fine, but what are they going to do about the leaked ammonia, hmm? Are they going to mine it from Tribble urine, hmmm? Oh wait....
Bacon your pardon, just doing my one-cry-wolf-a-day exercise. It helps me keep in touch with the naive old days of childhood, after all ;)
If NASA has a plan, I'm sure it's been well thought out.
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