Linus Torvalds is in favor of sunsetting x32 and many other upstream contributors in favor of seeing it deprecated and removed

It looks like you missed a verb there. Either that, or Slashdot has finally come across something everyone on Slashdot can agree is "News for Nerds." One nerd attempting to assassinate a group of nerds certainly meets every possible meaning of "News for Nerds."

If 12 minute trips allow them to move 50% (or even a smaller percentage because of overhead) more people vs 18 minute trips, it makes sense to go faster. There might be limits in the number of cars they want to have in the tunnel at once, or it might save on the number of cars they have to build/buy. The saved 6 minutes might just be a nice bonus to moving more people.

I disagree. I'd wager the primary reason you see him as unimportant is because Nintendo hasn't done anything with him. Including him as a full fledged character would help to do so. Kind of a catch-22.

I actually really like Waluigi. His character is different from Wario in my mind, in that Wario is a not very good bad guy, while Waluigi is a comically incompetent bad guy. His design is clearly inspired by Snidely Whiplash and Whiplash himself is parodying, but his idiom is more like Wile E Coyote (Waluigi Coyote: Super Genius), Petey Puma, Dark Helmet (Spaceballs) or maybe Strong Bad. Egotistical and full of himself, but ridiculously bad at everything. The type to put on a super hero costume and run off a cliff expecting to fly. He is enjoyable because he gives players an opportunity for some schadenfreude. He fails not because he's unlucky, or because the hero is so skilled, but because he's just terrible. Who doesn't like to think of evil as incompetent, even if it usually isn't in real life. In a game like this, I would like to play him because he would fit with my skill level (I'm comically bad at these games), and would allow me to laugh at myself with a self-mocking Waaaahhh. Ideal for a couch game played with friends where people can laugh and have fun. Personally I've found many intros to games where Waluigi and Wario have my favorite parts (check Mario Golf and Mario Tennis for the Gamecube, for example), which are some of the only times Nintendo has bothered to give him anything to do.

I do agree his voice is funny, and probably the reason most people who like him are so fond of him.

I'm not an IP lawyer, but if you follow the link to the USPTO from google's page, and then click images you get this: http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?D... Which shows that the patent has an extension of 616 days. It is itself a continuation of another patent that was filed on April 11, 1997 in the US (and is based on a Japanese patent filed on April 12, 1996, which is where you got your date), just under what I believe is the 1 year limit when filing for a US patent based on a patent in another country. April 11,1997 + 616 days + 20 years = Dec 18, 2018, so that's where they got the date. For the one I was referring to (US8594204), it had an extension of 2985 days = 8 years (which is why it looks to expire in 2023).

I could be wrong, but, unfortunately, I believe there are other DVD patents besides MPEG-2 that are still in effect:

www.dvd6cla.com/list.html

http://www.one-red.com/license-programs/one-red-dvd-disc-and-dvd-player-license-programs/patent-lists

http://one-red.com/en/license-programs/one-red-dvd-disc-and-dvd-player-license-programs/dvd-software#!tab4

At least one of those has an 8 year extension and doesn't expire until 2023. That one is titled as related to Subtitles, so maybe it's possible to write software that doesn't use the subtitles that wouldn't have issues with that one? Maybe some of the others could also be avoided, too, but I haven't looked, and they're supposed to be DVD essential.

Doesn't the last DVD patent expire in less than a week (Feb 14, I think)? http://www.osnews.com/story/24... http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wi... Or does VLC already ignore all those because it's based in France? Maybe VLC is already set, and it's just a Handbrake update to look forward to sometime after Wednesday.

The answer to this is obvious. They've decided how many games they want on it at this price. If they add too many, no one will buy them on Virtual Console. The number of cartridges is irrelevant. It doesn't matter if they have 21 or 22 "cartridges". They likely have the exact same hardware in this as the NES classic*, and that had room for literally hundreds of games, not just the 30 included. They don't want to reduce the perceived value of their games by making them too cheap. Indeed, if they wanted to include Super Mario All-Stars, they would have included it as a separate "cartridge", so the marketing could increase the game count. They actually did this for the NES Classic with Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. They could have combined them into the Donkey Kong Classics "cartridge" (also released for the NES as a combined cartridge), but why would they. They can include as many completely Nintendo owned games as they want at zero cost to them. The opportunity cost in other sales and perceived value, however, stops them from doing so.

*Which hopefully explains why they discontinued that one...every additional NES Classic they produced would've meant exactly one less SNES Classic produced. They are likely identical with a different plastic shell, as the NES Classic hardware is perfectly capable of playing SNES games. The controllers are likely using the exact same board as the NES classic controller (which is actually just a Wii Classic Controller board) as well. This was the reason they discontinued the NES Classic, they wanted to produce these instead. They might go back to the NES if the SNES sales were to ever slow, just needing to use the other plastic parts and box. The electronics would be identical and require no production changes.

This argument has no place on Slashdot. Nintendo did not download the files off the internet. What they did is use the existing file format (.nes). The files are identical because the ROM dumps were taken from the cartridges. Once the format is specified, the files will always end up identical. There is no analog noise here to make them different. This is how things like GoodNes sets exist. The dumps always come out the same. Digital files are identical because they're digital files. If you think Nintendo, Konami, Square, and Capcom didn't have copies of all their officially licensed cartridges' ROMS, I think you're nuts. Take, for example, the Clu Clu Land disk game on the Gamecube Animal Crossing release that included NES games. That one is nearly identical to the one in Mame, but it keeps the checksums and has a blank high score table (the checksums is the difference between famicom disk system (fds) and quickdisk (qd) files by the way). I haven't looked at what format the disk system games are in on the Japanese Mini version.

The File format, by the way is exactly a 16 bytes header, with defined places (PRG-ROM followed by the CHR-ROM) for the ROMs. The only information contained in the header is a code for which mapper to use (describes which circuit-board/integrated circuits; most licensed games use one of about a dozen types), mirroring and save support, and the sizes of the PRG and CHR. I've personally dumped my collection of 300+ NES games and they come out identical to the GoodNes ones, unless the mirroring or save support detection fails. That's how I know the hardware worked and I don't have to clean the contacts better. They have their own copies. They don't need to download them. They used the existing file format.

I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean:

The only genetic testing I'm aware of in sports were those for proving an athlete is a woman. And I think that one was replaced with a test for testosterone. I'm unaware of anywhere in the military where that happens either (maybe astronauts?). There is certainly selectivity based on abilities and attributes, but those aren't purely genetic tests. About the closest you get to a genetic test is height, but that's also based on nutrition and other environmental factors. If you classify these as genetic tests, then I don't see how this is different from also calling the current job requirements for intelligence genetic tests. Things like GPA or just talking to someone in an interview are as much genetic tests as measuring someone's height or their running speed are.

Aren't all of the shareholders harmed by the misrepresentation (barring insider trading)? So shouldn't all of the shareholders by entitled to any settlement/compensation. And since the money is coming from the company, they're all just paying themselves, right? If they already sold their investment, why should the people who didn't sell have to pay twice (they already lost the same value as those who sold). It seems like the only logical target of a suit would be the actual people who are responsible for the accounting scandal, not the overall company itself. (Or possibly anyone who sold before the accounting scandal came to light, but, again, those people are not Toshiba.)

From the article, it sounds like he developed the anitgen from having received more than 3 liters of blood during surgery as a youth. If I'm understanding correctly, his body was given blood incompatible with his own and so it created the antigen to deal with it. Does that mean that the hundred people in a typical city acquired it the same way, and that the number of people developing it will decrease as fewer people are given incompatible blood and those who have in the past die off?

It seems to me the correct way to handle this is to force the company to accept competing offers at the intermediate steps. If I understand how most of these work, it's something like: Actual Cost:Price0, Producer:Price1, Middleman:Price2, and Retailer:Price3 - profit for each is price - cost. One company owns all three companies. So Price0 and Price3 are determined by the market, and locations can't be moved. Price1 and Price2 are whatever the company says they are, and can be moved to anywhere in the globe to reduce taxes. Companies that own all three of these stages make Price1=Price0 and Price3=Price2 and Price2-Price1 = maximum profit and wherever in the globe taxes are lowest, even though the Middleman doesn't do anything. It seems to me the way to fix this, is to force the company to sell at Price1 to anyone who wants to buy, not just the companies owned by the same parent company. Watch Price1 suddenly be what it should be (i.e. very close to Price3).

Why is this is even needed. Has K-12 education changed that much in the last twenty years? Thinking back on my education, I can't think of anything that would have been improved with high speed internet. The only uses that I'm coming up for at this age group are entertainment uses (i.e. things students shouldn't be doing during school hours) or things like Khan Academy. Are any schools wanting this for online learning? Wouldn't the savings in personnel offset the costs needed for installation? Of course, even if we assume it is needed, isn't this just the FCC admitting that high speed internet is a basic service, which means that it should be regulated as such (i.e. Title II)?

This was Motorola (inventor of the cellphone). Not all patents are software patents.