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Comment I had the Idea, became the programmer (Score 1) 735

I had an idea as non-programmer and did know any programmers in the late 90's. My solution was to be become the programmer. I ended up scratching my own itch by tossing together a small music related app. It ended up paying my way through college a couple years later when I was laid off by the Fortune 500 company I was working for in '01. The software is still used though it is a nightmare for me to try to maintain.

I have lots more ideas that I know are capable of being written and there is even a market for them, but it is much harder for me to work on something one my own after spending all day working on company code.

Comment Re:So can someone answer this: (Score 1) 747

Parent pretty much sums it up. As it stands now you have to buy a license to decrypt HDCP, and you get a key to do so. If you do not abide by the terms of the license, your key can get revoked and these revoked keys can be embedded in a content stream to block usage by the offending hardware. Though I am unaware of any that have been at this time.

I have in front of me a piece of hardware (that I have been developing on), that actually has a HDMI input and "may" be capable of decrypting that stream. I could then convert that stream into an IP stream, QAM, or even record to disk. However, the HDCP license forbids re-transmitting that stream over long distances in the clear or storing as such. So now this box is legally only capable of handling un-encrypted HDMI signals. I'm wondering if this information may allow devices to masquerade as a device from another manufacturer. Not that I would do that myself, but it seems that it could make "software" HDCP decryption systems more common. The software description is used loosely since much of this is currently handled in hardware or FPGA sub-systems.

Comment Re:Bad consequences (Score 2, Informative) 758

"you don't have to know you're infringing to infringe."

Not necessarily. At least in the US, there is a concept of "good faith". The innocent purchaser doctrine, covered in Uniform Commercial Code, sections 1-201(9) and 2-403, allows for a good faith defense if the transaction took place in an ordinary course of business (e.g., non-suspicious) for a non-merchant buyer (consumer). Merchant rules slightly differ with reasonable commercial standards of fair dealing in the trade.

Comment Re:Bad ideas last forever (Score 1) 794

That seems to apply to just "single serving" portions, hardly applicable to the tub of crisco I just bought:
http://www.fda.gov/Food/LabelingNutrition/FoodLabelingGuidanceRegulatoryInformation/InspectionCompliance/WarningOtherLetters/ucm110234.htm

There is even an article just last month admitting that they [FDA] are still evaluating the "serving size" issue:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/06/business/06portion.html

Comment Re:Bad ideas last forever (Score 2, Informative) 794

Yes, that is why the label says 0g and not transfat-free. FDA guidelines allow rounding down 0.49g to 0g for a single serving. So now it's just a matter of serving size manipulation to get it to 0.49g.

I've been trying to teach to family to correlate the food labels with the serving size and deduce what is consumed with a portion size (what you choose to eat). Who eats just one cookie?

Comment Re:That's me! (Score 1) 453

Our CEO refuses to have an IT department. While it can temporarily detract from normal job duties, it does force you to learn how to do IT work. Every employee learns how manage their Linux workstation with very little hand-holding. The primary benefit seems to be that if one finds a problem, there is no waiting for someone else to fix it, you roll up your sleeves and get it done yourself.

Having a "go-to" Linux guru that many cite at /. is an alien concept here.

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