I doubt that would matter. China has a competitive advantage in the manufacturing side, so unless you can infringe on a patent and beat them out in making whatever, infringing a patent really wouldn't be too much of a big deal.

Of course, this doesn't take into account any software patents. But I guess the lack of worker's rights in China probably make their coding competitive for similar reasons that their manufacturing is.

Except the law is not on their side. This is from an article about this on Wired.com, though, so you're welcome to take it from whence it comes.

the basic gist of this is that in the UK, where these guys have been practicing, there is no statutory claim to damages, and the lawyers in the UK system in a case like this would usually be able to claim only as much as the retail price of one item in damages. That would mean 75p in the case of a single downloaded music track.

The law firms are sending letters of demand for much more than this, and sending them to people in financial difficulty - who cannot afford to get legal representation, and who often pay up to make it go away. Hearing about massive damages awarded in cases similar to this in the States probably is a factor.

The lawyers typically don't go after people who haven't paid, and bring them to court. But one of them is considering moving from the UK to the US just because of the statuary damages angle that RIAA have managed to make law.

The wired article is here -http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/10/the-legal-blackmail-business/ - so everyone can ignore that one, as well, and write whatever comments they feel.

For me, the issue here is the use of copyright law to stop this. I don't see why the police would have to get a copyright exemption for the creation of a database, as they are not planning to make or sell shoes with similar patterns.

As far as I can see it, this is research of an academic nature. Now, if people want to go after the police here in a civil liberties and person's rights issue - and I don't think there's an issue with these in this case anyway, because I don't see how the shoes you wear now, or may buy in the future, are unique enough to qualify as rights-qualifying - then that's fine. But copyright this is manifestly not.

I don't think it's meant to be completely unavailable to them, more like they're just not being in-your-face about selling this to them or their kids.

If anyone wants it, they can go off-base and get the game. It's just not going to be waiting at the corner store, ready to cause a breakdown, when a wife or kid of a recently dead soldier walks in.

According to this page

http://roadsidephotos.sabr.org/baseball/name.htm

you're wrong there. It was originally named the "Championship of the World" and this was then shortened to "World Championship Series", and again to "World Series". Your way would make much more sense, though.

Field hockey.

And THAT was probably his best-reasoned and highest quality argument.

The rest of his argument is based off of eyeballing the flow rate of a video of oil and gas coming out of a pipe for which he can't even get an accurate diameter, and then incorrectly guessing the pressure, and then using his fishpond as an analogy.

Yep - I'm convinced.

Which Snake Plissken will then surf while chasing a runaway convertible. Or possibly a helicopter.

Kind of hard to invade, conquer and annex a territory that already belongs to them, though.

Just in time for me to use them while operating my flying car, then!

One of the best posts I've read in a long time, and definitely on topic - what the hell is going on with the moderating here?

Or effectively a demo-style release, playable from start to finish and with a full feature set as advertised on the box, but missing the cool bits that actually make the game. I noticed this with some of the racing games I had on xbox 360 - many of the cars are not included in the initial release, and you have to buy them later: what the hell is the point of a car racing game without cars?

China is also extending the rail networks in Tibet, and possibly the most serious threat to China's internal stability came from the riots in Xinjiang province last year. Tensions in both Tibet and Xinjiang are still simmering, largely because the non-Han residents feel left out of the equation every time jobs and wealth opportunities appear in their areas.

There is also a credible threat (well, depending on who you choose to get your news from, but hey)from the resident Chinese Muslim population, many of whom live in Xinjiang province, and who identify more with Pakistan, Khazakhstan and Turkmenistan than they do with the Middle Kingdom.

I'm wondering if the routing of the railway line has something to do with this, to give idle hands some work and some access to cash in these areas, and to extend influence into neighbouring countries so that if something happens in the future, China has some real leveraging tools to get things going in the direction that they like. Hell, it could even be used as a reason for a pre-emptive invasion: " Well , we had to go in, it was clear for all to see that country X was not able to safeguard a vital international asset that all of Asia and Europe uses. But no need to thank us for the invasion, we were only doing what any country would have done."

No, a tilt-shift would be the lens to go for. Architectural photography favours this type of lens because you can adjust it to match the plane of the subject, and it would be pretty easy to do this for the very easily identified image plane of the map under glass.

Distortion-free in one easy step.

More of a worry, really is getting all sections of each image evenly lit without reflections. Not as easy as you'd first assume.

I remember seeing an article, either on Wired or here (too lazy to google it right now) that was allegedly an anonymous insider's account of facebook's upcoming changes. They were quite adamant that there has always been a super-password - it used to be "Chuck Norris" - which has access to ALL of the accounts on facebook.

But it does seem terminally stupid of the competition to open facebook accounts. Surely they should be aware of the lack of privacy inherent in making that move? After all, they're trying to do build similar systems.