There are about 500 active trademarks matching the string "multimeter". I could go through them myself in a few hours manually, or about ten minutes if I could grep the records first for relevancy.

My conclusion is that Sparkfun are just incompetent. I'm sure they would have no problem paying their lawyers to enforce their trademark, but they plead for special treatment as a poor widdle small business when they're on the receiving end. Fuck 'em.

I meant "would work against." Sorry about that.

Heh. Yeah, but whose common sense and human decency? Why, yours, of course, and no one else's! It's amazing how many disputes can be settled by individual whim.

If you can't think of a case where your own permissive standards wouldn't work against what you consider good and decent if the shoe were on the other foot, then you aren't very imaginative.

Uh, yeah, that is no reason. A lawyer could make everyone happy (at least for the short term), but it would still dilute the mark (correctly, imho, but that's not important).

I notice that SparkFun Electronics is a registered trademark. I'm sure they'd have no problem with my competing companies, SporkFun electronics and Sp@rkFun Electronics.

In the law, ignorance is not an excuse and hasn't been for centuries if not millennia. You are responsible for what you sell and, yes, for better or worse, colors have been trademarkable for a while now. I know of several examples like T-Mobile's magenta and Reese's orange, and I'm not even a retailer.

I have no doubt that SparkFun would exercise its trademark against infringers, so I have little sympathy for their case even if their violation was unintentional.

The thing is, allowing trademark violations to go unchallenged for no particular reason at all (in law, being kind is not a reason) will dilute the mark just as if they did nothing, or even worse. So, there is heavy incentive for them not to allow it, and they probably wouldn't.

What a great feeling it must be to pay extra for the privilege of fixing their bugs for them. Did they at least give you a discount? (Rhetorical question; I know they didn't.)

Look at those assholes. Ordinary fucking people. I hate 'em.

Well, if he's anything like me, the 'emotion' is amusement and schadenfreude.

Huh? When I was a vegan, I'd have immediately said 'yes' to that question.

On the other hand, one of the primary benefits of being a vegan was that I had to reevaluate my diet and make conscious choices. I suppose if artificial animal products existed, I wouldn't have had that benefit. Nonetheless, I'd rather they did exist. I would hopefully have learned self-control some other way.

Drip brewing doesn't really scale well, since it takes time for the grounds to saturate, and a small amount of grounds will form a thin layer; both of these make the percolation happen too fast. Also, the first cup of water won't be quite hot enough for good coffee, unless you have a very good drip machine. (Most drip machines don't heat the water enough, but it's even worse for small amounts of water.)

A coffee maker intended for 4-6 cups can make a single cup, but it'll be pretty shitty. Use a press, cone, or single-serve drip machine.

It would probably be a service you subscribe to, not a barter economy. Who cares about owning a "nice new battery"? It's a consumable anyway. A guaranteed minimum quality of service is all that i would require, and this is easily enforced.

What do you expect? His handle is 'sexconker'. Whether he's a pedo or simply a horse chestnut insertion fetishist is unclear, but something is clearly awry.

What is this magical phone without delicate glass on the touchscreen? I want one.

what? p-values are in no way restricted to the normal distribution, although a lot of statistical theory does involve the normal distribution.