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Comment Re:Amen, brother Amen! (Score 4, Insightful) 522

This is because, as a developer, you're a user who understands and knows what you want. Microsoft is writing software for the kind of people who'd type google into the google search bar to get to google.

I've done that, intentionally. Do you know why? Because between Microsoft deciding that anything that isn't at least a second level domain is a search request intended for bing and Time Warner deciding that anything that isn't immediately properly resolveable should be DNS redirected to their own god-awful search-like landing page, that can be the most reliable way to get to where I actually want to go.

I usually have set my DNS to OpenDNS, but if I've rebuilt the machine or traveled and stayed somewhere that mysteriously breaks my manually-specified DNS server, I may have reverted the notebook to use whatever is automatically set by DHCP.

I usually uncheck software's constant attempts to make [insert name here] my new default search agent, or to activate some added search suggestion do-hickey, but I'm not perfectly vigilant.

Nevermind that this browser will automatically assume "www." and that browser will automatically assume ".com" and maybe, but not consisntently, if you type "google" you'll actually get to the Google front page.

The kind of people who type google into the google search bar to get google are the kind of people who are not so technologically savvy that they can consistently prevent the ever-loving war to redirect any user typing something into what should be a URL entry field to some random "search engine" because user traffic = middleman $$$.

THE UNIFIED SEARCH AND ADDRESS BAR IS TEH DEVIL.

The Bing toolbar, Google toolbar, or what have you can be ugly clutter, but it can't be subtly screwed with by the other devils.

And that is why you get people typing google into the google search bar to get to google.

Comment Re:Our patent system is totally broken (Score 1) 152

Saying that the word " infinity cove" doesn't include a description of lighting doesn't add much value, and frankly I am not going to waste my time researching which of 16,000 search results they meant when they can't even provide their own link.

The burden of persuasion lies with the person citing (if you can even call it that) the prior art...

Comment Re:Our patent system is totally broken (Score 4, Informative) 152

There should be an easy and open mechanism for objections. The process as it stands is broken and very obscure.

Translation: It should take no knowlege, cost nothing, and preferably involve some charitable group that carries out my wants, unbidden, before I've even appreciated that I have them. Just like in everything else in life.

Rebuttal:

Citation of prior art and written statements

"Any person at any time may cite to the Office in writing... prior art consisting of patents or printed publications which that person believes to have a bearing on the patentability of any claim of a particular patent... [and] If the person citing prior art or written statements... explains in writing the pertinence and manner of applying the prior art or written statements to at least 1 claim of the patent, the citation of the prior art or written statements and the explanation thereof shall become a part of the official file of the patent."

That seems easy, open, to cost nothing (but time and a stamp), and not particularly obscure. But then, if you can't be bothered to Google how to submit prior art and then read one of the top 5 links, everything is obscure.

Comment Re:Our patent system is totally broken (Score 2) 152

Prior art: infinity cove. Patent dismissed. End of story. Thanks for playing.

No decription of lighting.

Does not anticipate.

All limitations must be shown to be obvious.

Dismissal reversed upon appeal to the PTAB. Back to the examiner.

Don't tell me the rules of a game I play for a living, son. I know them better than you ever will.

Comment Re:Our patent system is totally broken (Score 1) 152

Took me 10 seconds to find this page:

It took me about 30 seconds to glance at this:

1. A studio arrangement, comprising: a background comprising a white cyclorama; a front light source positioned in a longitudinal axis intersecting the background, the longitudinal axis further being substantially perpendicular to a surface of the white cyclorama; an image capture position located between the background and the front light source in the longitudinal axis, the image capture position comprising at least one image capture device equipped with an eighty-five millimeter lens, the at least one image capture device further configured with an ISO setting of about three hundred twenty and an f-stop value of about 5.6; an elevated platform positioned between the image capture position and the background in the longitudinal axis, the front light source being directed toward a subject on the elevated platform; a first rear light source aimed at the background and positioned between the elevated platform and the background in the longitudinal axis, the first rear light source positioned below a top surface of the elevated platform and oriented at an upward angle relative to a floor level; a second rear light source aimed at the background and positioned between the elevated platform and the background in the longitudinal axis, the second rear light source positioned above the top surface of the elevated platform and oriented at a downward angle relative to the floor level; a third rear light source aimed at the background and positioned in a lateral axis intersecting the elevated platform and being substantially perpendicular to the longitudinal axis, the third rear light source further positioned adjacent to a side of the elevated platform; and a fourth rear light source aimed at the background and positioned in the lateral axis adjacent to an opposing side of the elevated platform relative to the third rear light source; wherein a top surface of the elevated platform reflects light emanating from the background such that the elevated platform appears white and a rear edge of the elevated platform is substantially imperceptible to the image capture device; and the first rear light source, the second rear light source, the third rear light source, and the fourth rear light source comprise a combined intensity greater than the front light source according to about a 10:3 ratio.

Then to look at your linked page and see that this Mr. Dobbins used at most 4 work lights, set alongside the camera tripod, which bounced light off the ceiling and onto the backdrop.

Now you tell me... is the camera between the lights and the screen along the same longitudinal axis? Where are the rear light sources? Any of them?

What, exactly, are they trying to "patent" and why does this examiner still have a job? It's obvious that we need to have crowdsourcing prior art as an official part of the patent process.

Question, meet answer (above). Another thing that's obvious is that you have not read the claims or found anything that's more than background-relevant to whether the idea is patentable or not.

Comment Re:time for a new public licence (Score 1) 197

That's idiotic. Free people aren't free to torture and kill anyone they like, no matter how much they want to. Freedom has natural boundaries, and doesn't include murder for a start.

That's idiotic. Free people aren't free to criticize anyone they like, no matter how much they want to. Freedom has natural boundaries, and doesn't include interfering with their "elected president" for a start.

"Natural boundaries...." an almost infinitely malleable concept useful for turning "freedom" into an arbitrary means of exercising pervasive control.

Comment Re:time for a new public licence (Score 1) 197

To understand the concept, you should think of "free" as in "free speech," not as in "free beer".

We campaign for these freedoms because everyone deserves them. With these freedoms, the users (both individually and collectively) control the program and what it does for them. When users don't control the program, we call it a âoenonfreeâ or âoeproprietaryâ program. The nonfree program controls the users, and the developer controls the program; this makes the program an instrument of unjust power.

A program is free software if the program's users have the four essential freedoms:
* The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
*The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
* The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
* The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

GNU's Free Software Definition

Your failure to research the philosophy of the license you wish to see changed does not constitute an argument. It is rather an admission that you're a willing member of the rabble... as if posting AC wasn't enough of one.

Comment Re:time for a new public licence (Score 1) 197

free to use unless you intend to kill people.

So you're willing to throw out "free as in speech" the moment that the person using the software uses it in a way that you don't like, or just isn't somebody that you like.

Good luck with that. Everyone has activities that they don't like and people that they don't like. Those dislikes might even, *gasp*, be directed at you.

Double good luck with that given that Linux is about as likely to change its license as you are to recognize the hypocrisy of a "public license" that is limited to your ideological friends.

Comment Re:They should ban legacy admission preferences (Score 1) 410

All 5 of us applied to U of M. Only one of us got in. Let me repeat that for you. Only one of us got accepted. It wasn't me either, my brother got in because he had the highest grades of all of us with a 3.7 GPA and a 29 on his ACT's. I was only a little behind him 3.6 GPA 26 ACT. Clearly alumni status didn't count that much.

In the University of Michigan undergraduate school suit (Gratz v. Bollinger), 'legacy' applicants were awarded 4 points. Racial minorities were awarded 20 points. Perfect SAT scores were worth 12 points.

The effect of 'legacy' admissions policies on the racial profile of matriculating students is pretty low, and the issue essentially a canard to distract from the serious distortions introduced by "racially sensitive admissions policies."

Comment Re:Wisest quote I saw from the pundit class (Score 2) 410

Wisest quote I saw from the pundit class:

âoeI just keep wishing that the people who spend so much time trying to end racial preferences in higher ed would work to end the racial differences in the education we provide K-12â

            --Kati Haycock, Education Trust

I just keep wishing the people who spend so much time trying to implement and preserve racial preferences in admissions would work to end the racial differences in K-12 education instead of taking the easy route of 'fixing' disparate K-12 education after-the-fact by artificially boosting qualifications and/or lowering admission thresholds in the name of 'diversity.'

The sentiment in Haycock's wish works both ways, you see. The dirty little secret that neither Haycock nor Sotommayor want to acknowledge is that "racially sensitive admissions policies" only get the student through the door -- they do nothing to address the significant gap in minority student retention and graduation. Pulling in more minority students so that 60% can drop out with significant student loan debt but no degree is not doing anyone a favor.

Comment Re:Assistant Principal doesn't believe it was bull (Score 1) 798

* If bullies are frequently heard talking about how they're going to teach-someone-a-lesson, in your world does that mean we should let the abuse slide and just judge them on their poor teaching skills?

No, it means that we really need to work on your reading comprehension skills.

1. Just because you say "you're wrong" doesn't mean that I am.
2. Thanks for proving my second point for me.
3. Thanks for proving my first point for me. The guy you attacked didn't claim to have been bullied, much less to relish bullying others.
4. Nope. And even if I did, asking would be sufficient, not asking and then immediately following up with a charge that the parent bullied the child.

You've already solved it with 'punishment' which in your head seems to be abuse that's sanctified because of its 'educative' goals.*

Yep..

Of course, that's how perpetrators of any human vice justify their personal use. They alone, out of the whole human race, actually have a reason for their actions.

Name even one society which does not punish. Alternately, explain how a universal lack of punishment is a virtue. Because that is precisely where you've taking this given your rejection of punishment by judges, administrators and parents.

And again... troll.

Comment Re:Assistant Principal doesn't believe it was bull (Score 1) 798

Oh, and you can bet my kid stopped that crap that day.

How'd you get him to do that? Did you bully him?

Trolling with baseless and inflammatory questions? Or intentionally displaying your abject stupidity by interpreting "bully" so broadly that the term becomes useless?

Given your posting history, my bet is on both.

For others who might care (since you won't):
Punishment and bullying are distinguishable in many ways, one of which is that punishment tends to be used after violation of a generally agreed norm by someone we recognize has the authority to punish (a judge, an teacher, a parent). Bullying tends to involve some random jackass acting on a whim or in reponse to a violation of his own personal rules. I'll assume for the sake of argument that you're aware of the various state laws and school policies that make bullying a punishable offense, rather than a figment of the GP's imagination.

Comment Re:Completely wrong summary (Score 1) 319

Exactly. And even more specifically, when it comes time to evict someone who refuses to leave, the city would enforce that as well via the sheriff's department.

At that point you may as well announce that the City of San Francisco is aggressively enforcing a ban on dogs in leased apartments, or smokers in leased apartments, or practicing your heavy metal set in leased apartments. Law enforcement will step in in any instance in which someone refuses to leave after a valid eviction.

The article says that there are currently 85 investigations -- in a city of one million people. The summary says that the eviction was filed by a private attorney, not a city attorney or employee. While it's incorrect to say that the city isn't doing "anything," GGGP's point was that the landlords are the ones aggressively enforcing the ban for fundamentally different reasons.

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