Note I didn't say "make money for the municipalities off you". The camera companies were not operating at a loss. Of this you can be sure. Those guys are a lot of things, but bad businessmen isn't one of them.

yep, what you said is even better than what I said.

people who run red lights suck and all, but this isn't about safety. If it were about safety, the cameras would go into places where your safety is most likely to be compromised. For example, cameras would be on parking lots, etc, where people are robbed, abducted, attacked. The placement of red light cameras suggest that their purpose is to make money. They are put in places where there is a high probability of catching you doing something ticketable.

The red light camera companies are in it to make money off you. Where I live, a majority of the money goes not to the city, but to the company operating the red light cameras. They are heavily interested in making money by taking it from you. And guess what? Dishonest people who run the red lights and get camera tickets don't pay them. The only people who pay them are honest people. So these companies have found yet another way to extract money from hardworking people who perhaps misjudged a traffic light.

If a cop pulls you over for running a red light, that's one thing. He has an interest in preventing crime. The police officers I have talked to about this usually tell me that in most cases, unless the person was being reckless or was suspect (or treated the cop like a jerk), the person would be let go with a warning. He isn't getting richer by pulling you over. The police officer can make a judgement call. Many police officers are reasonable people who aren't trying to ruin your day.

The companies who run the red light cameras have the power and the incentive to be as harsh and unreasonable as possible. They want your money. It's all done via an automated process so there is no face to face contact with anyone, so no judgement call can be made.

If the local governments were in charge of operating the cameras I think many people would feel differently. I know I would. I mean I don't like the idea of the cameras, but at least the money isn't just making someone rich.

LOL, ironically my post about intellectualism seems to make the point that the article was trying to make ...

Forgot the s on "beside". The "isn't" should have been "is". Also "being intellectual" should have been "to be intellectual".

this.

beside, equating chasing after the university degree with intellectualism isn't just plain wrong. Being intellectual is to enjoy learning, and one could argue that many universities are less about learning and more about learning enough to pass a class.

NONE of these should have been granted a U.S. patent. This is ridiculous!

U.S. law (Section 101 of Title 35 U.S.C.) defines what is patentable subject matter: "Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title." Gestures are not processes, machines, manufactures, or compositions of matter, so they are NEVER supposed to be patented.

Gestures are basically signals, and signals are specifically NOT patentable. The Federal Circuit has ruled that signals are not statutory subject matter, because articles of manufacture (the only plausible category) do not include intangible, incorporeal, transitory entities (in In re Nuitjen, 500 F.3d 1346 (Fed. Cir. 2007)).

This is another example of unwarranted interference by the government in the free market. Is there really a need to grant monopolies to companies for specific gestures? No. It's not justified by any law. What's more, it harms society. Just imagine if each car company had to have a radically different interface due to patents - it would harm safety! This just worsens the digital divide, with no legal or societal justification.

We need the courts to require a re-review of every patent, at no cost to defendants, before any case is tried, and for the courts to assume that the patent office is a registration of claim, not anything meaningful. There are too many bad patents to believe otherwise.

(Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, and speak only for myself. I'm sure not impressed by the work of some lawyers, though.)

Agreed that gnome's star is fading. I don't see how anyone could ever love kde, but xfce is wonderful. But therein lies the beauty: you can pick whatever DE you want. That's powerful!

there are several desktop environments for linux, not just two. Nobody has to put any feet down. You can use whichever you like. Who cares?

Up until about a year ago, I used Ubuntu as my OS (at work) every day and it worked fine. I have to admit I don't know what kind of fancy effects they are using these days, but you could always turn that crap off.

Also, I went from gnome to xfce because gnome was becoming too bloated for my tastes. I didn't feel like it was getting dumbed down so much as it was getting too fat. Have you checked out xubuntu?

Seriously? The linux Desktop Environment has been steadily improving over the years and all you can do is find fault with that?

A GUI serves the same purpose as an API. Both are interfaces. Linux has evolved from a very poor API to a fairly polished API. Are you a programmer? What kind of API do you like to write code against?

Now, why would someone designed an API that is inconsistent, poorly documented, and not well thought out? A lot of reasons, none good: incompetence, insufficient time, intentional obfuscation. Conversely, people who write good APIs do so as the result of an intelligent, thoughtful process.

Linux is evolving into the latter. It's becoming smarter, so that you don't have to bewilder users with an array of esoteric choices. Linux isn't getting dumbed down, it's getting smarter. The linux ecosystem has all kinds of products for different people. Instead of complaining about Ubuntu, just use gentoo and shut up. You can still have your self-defining sense of smugness and everything.

I love how the body has like two levers to control all body functions. You know, so the brain can grab them with its... hands?

Google offers a ton of APIs that all use OAuth for authentication. Sounds good on the surface until you actually try to use it.

Have you ever tried to implement one of their APIs based on their documentation? Good luck with that. All of the google API documentation I have had to use is always lacking those little details that make the difference between having things work and being very frustrated. The docs get you 95% of the way there, and then you just have to hack at it, which sucks because there are more interesting things to hack.

try getting bit by a hobo sapiens! rrrrawwr!

It'll soon be the must-have fashion accessory for the pitbulls and rottweilers roaming the ghetto

Both Fedora and Ubuntu will reap benefits, because they will end up packaging many of the results. But even more importantly, people around the world will reap the benefits. Not only immediately (from these projects), but even more importantly, but also from all the amazing work these developers will do in the years ahead because they they learned how to collaboratively develop software. Good job.