Comment Look, you have 6 fingers! (Score 1) 438
therefore you must be a thief, as the control group only has 5 fingers...
evidence in trials? no, thanks!
evidence in trials? no, thanks!
Comment Re:A slightly different way to resolve this (Score 2, Insightful) 294
it's funny to notice that it's exactly like this that the Mafia started... providing state-like "services" from "alternate" sources... and then the people became "addicted" to them... and now it lives on... from within :-)
Comment Re:Rebuttal (Score 1) 294
it's the Pentium @ 90MHz with the floating point error in the firmware... :-)
Comment Re:Come on... (Score 1) 294
more like misappropriation than theft then...
Comment Re:Oh, Those Dumb Police Officers! (Score 1) 294
except that sometime they arrest you instead of the one who broke-in... (like Obama's friend...)
Comment Where's the FBI? (Score 2, Interesting) 294
How is a local enforcement officer involved in a case of trademark/licensing/brand/virtualspace?
Isn't this something that would have FBI jurisdiction, if anything - unless the "crime" requires the help of the Interpol/Europol...
Questions:
- How is this a theft? (I'm sure that Cisco didn't accuse Apple of "theft" for the iPhone name...)
- How is this relevant in the XXI century? Surely it would take another couple of centuries before judges and juries would know anything about digital technologies... (no offence, but while I can understand the crime of falsifying financial transactions, I don't see a "theft" here... more like a joyride instead...)
Have fun, the night is still joung!
Isn't this something that would have FBI jurisdiction, if anything - unless the "crime" requires the help of the Interpol/Europol...
Questions:
- How is this a theft? (I'm sure that Cisco didn't accuse Apple of "theft" for the iPhone name...)
- How is this relevant in the XXI century? Surely it would take another couple of centuries before judges and juries would know anything about digital technologies... (no offence, but while I can understand the crime of falsifying financial transactions, I don't see a "theft" here... more like a joyride instead...)
Have fun, the night is still joung!
First MS Retail Stores Will be In Scottsdale, AZ and Mission Viejo, CA 189
UnknowingFool writes "MS has announced the locations of its first two retail stores. The first one will be located at The Shops in Mission Viejo, CA sometime in the fall. There is an existing Apple store at the location. The second one will be located in Scottsdale Fashion Square in Scottsdale, AZ. That location does not have an Apple store. According to Corporate Communications Director Kim Stocks, the locations were picked because they were 'hot markets,' presumably meaning high traffic. Also, the stores will sell laptops, Zunes, Xbox 360s, MS and 3rd party software. No details on which laptops were provided."
The Downsides to Digital Distribution 371
The gaming industry's ongoing shift from physical media to direct downloads has made buying new titles much more convenient, and in some cases cheaper. However, as this article in The Escapist notes, there are downsides as well, such as an increased dependence on console makers and the inability to sell your used games. Quoting:
"Microsoft and Sony might end up charging publishers an arm and a leg to enable game downloads, especially as they gain more and more control over distribution. Think about it: What if, 10 years from now, 50 percent of software sales for Microsoft's latest console come through Xbox Live? Or, in an even scarier scenario for consumers, what if there is no physical media drive at all, and everything goes through Xbox Live? Sony's marriage to the Blu-ray format ensures its continued support of game discs, but Microsoft has no such restrictions. They could cut console production costs and take control over the entire supply chain in one fell swoop. There would be zero room for publishers to negotiate anything in such a de facto monopoly. The perfect comparison is Wal-Mart. As the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart is able to demand pretty much whatever it wants of suppliers because it grants access to such large numbers of consumers."
Stopping Spam Before It Hits the Mail Server 157
Al writes "A team of researchers at the Georgia Institute for Technology say they have developed a way to catch spam before it even arrives on the mail server. Instead of bothering to analyze the contents of a spam message, their software, called SNARE (Spatio-temporal Network-level Automatic Reputation Engine), examines key aspects of individual packets of data to determine whether it might be spam. The team, led by assistant professor Nick Feamster, analyzed 2.5 million emails collected by McAfee in order to determine the key packet characteristics of spam. These include the geodesic proximity of end mail servers and the number of ports open on the sending machine. The approach catches spam 70 percent of the time, with a 0.3 false positive rate. Of course, revealing these characteristics could also allow spammers to fake their packets to avoid filtering."
Rude Drivers Reduce Traffic Jams 882
BuzzSkyline writes "Traffic jams are minimized if a significant fraction of drivers break the rules by doing things like passing on the wrong side or changing lanes too close to an intersection. The insight comes from a cellular automata study published this month in the journal Physical Review E. In effect, people who disregard the rules help to break up the groups that form as rule-followers clump together. The risk of jamming is lower if all people obey the rules than if they all disobey them, according to the analysis, but jamming risk is lowest when about 40 percent of people drive like jerks."
Comment Re:revisionist crap (Score 1) 310
peeking at your wisdom, what's your estimate for the number of microcomputers in the USA at the time (1979) ?
somehow I feel that Microsoft didn't have any branch or customer abroad on that year, and in any case I don't think that there were those many [mini|micro|main] computers back then... so how does Gizmodo explain so many BASIC sold?
somehow I feel that Microsoft didn't have any branch or customer abroad on that year, and in any case I don't think that there were those many [mini|micro|main] computers back then... so how does Gizmodo explain so many BASIC sold?
Comment Re:The original bit Bill was going to lead with- (Score 1) 310
<offtopic>
women would enjoy the use of a time machine to go back at each "loss" of that...
</offtopic>
women would enjoy the use of a time machine to go back at each "loss" of that...
</offtopic>
Comment Are you sure? (Score 1) 310
Why is that I hear Ballmer chanting: statistics, statistics, statistics...
200,000 microcomputers in 1979 and all Microsoft customers? I highly doubt that... where did this Bill guy get the numbers from?
Microsoft was founded only 4 years earlier and even though Bill had a $1 million fund from his grandpa, I don't see how he could market his software to 200,000 customers within just 4 years... maybe he was using the Traf-O-Data algorithm to count them...
anyhow, those weren't the .com bubble years... c'mon Bill, a little sanity check before you spread FUD on your bread...
200,000 microcomputers in 1979 and all Microsoft customers? I highly doubt that... where did this Bill guy get the numbers from?
Microsoft was founded only 4 years earlier and even though Bill had a $1 million fund from his grandpa, I don't see how he could market his software to 200,000 customers within just 4 years... maybe he was using the Traf-O-Data algorithm to count them...
anyhow, those weren't the
Comment Re:It will be a very difficult project (Score 1) 154
maybe your eyes bled because of the green/amber screen you were looking at...
Comment Better yet... (Score 1) 154
I would simply change your last step
- and publish the package as free software
with
- and give back the restructured database to the copyright owner for them to publish just the data free from copyright
If that doesn't sound right to them, then suggest that you will put it on a web page only accessible to yourself, leak the web link to Google and after it's indexed say "sorry for the mistake"...
Most quality assurance processes also are "measurements" (with possibly a following remedy if non-conformant) but do you think that consulting companies would consider that their "measurements" should be available for free to amyone? (I do...)
- and publish the package as free software
with
- and give back the restructured database to the copyright owner for them to publish just the data free from copyright
If that doesn't sound right to them, then suggest that you will put it on a web page only accessible to yourself, leak the web link to Google and after it's indexed say "sorry for the mistake"...
Most quality assurance processes also are "measurements" (with possibly a following remedy if non-conformant) but do you think that consulting companies would consider that their "measurements" should be available for free to amyone? (I do...)
