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Comment: Uniloc v Rackspace (Score 1) 124

by Windrip (#43304525) Attached to: Ask Nathan Myhrvold What You Will, Live Q&amp;A April 3

Oh Noes! The Hon. Leonard Davis tossed this case out of his court!

Troll: zero. FOSS: 1


Try to disgorge a reasonable answer. Please avoid responses along the lines of

This was an example of a patent that should never have been granted. IV only sues based on the right kind of patent.

Comment: The end game for GWT (Score 1) 219

by Windrip (#37665470) Attached to: Google Starts to Detail Dart

GWT rocks - don't expect it to go easily into that good night.

Consider the following scenario:
o Convert the compiler to accept Dart instead of "pure" Java. Remember, GWT does not implement the entire language, only a subset of the run-time. This conversion can easily be implemented as a rolling replacement to the compiler.
o There's absolutely no reason now for GWT to support Java 7+
o The Google Plugin for Eclipse will easily convert to Dart, keeping the developer mind-share
o Keeps all those nifty 3rd party libraries
o Keeps the advantage of all those optimizations that the GWT compiler reduces to practice. Google will not flush all that work.
o Tell Larry to stick it where the sun don't shine

Comment: I'm glad somebody else noticed this (Score 1) 66

by Windrip (#37316346) Attached to: Stanford AI Class 'Beta' For Commercial Launch?

1. Interesting that /. is making such a big deal of recognizing 1st time contributors. It's an "interesting" editorial policy.

2. I, too, wondered whether or not to complete the enrollment process. We never:
o had a realistic opportunity to interact with the instructor(s). I know that a certain set of questions will be answered, but what are the odds /my/ question will be answered? Apparently about 1 in 100K;
o never had an opportunity to get feedback to quizzes/exams;
o Maybe I missed it, in the initial furor, but the lectures will now be delivered 2 wks, after the live class.

The "bloom is off the rose", but it will provide a interesting excuse for ignoring my other tasks in the next few months.

Does anyone here doubt Acacia is assessing its patient portfolio in light of this now becoming a startup?

Comment: ZBV at the border (Score 4, Interesting) 154

by Windrip (#37279640) Attached to: EPIC Uncovers: Mobile Scanners Not 'Certified People Scanners'

Comments so far are missing a salient feature of these things: they are in use at the U.S. border.

Trucks drive past them at the border (oh, they're just mezkins...)

They are located north of the border, by approx. 30 miles (DHS calls it "defense in depth"). See them in my neck of the woods in Arizona on: northbound I/19, eastbound Hwy 82, northbound Hwy 83, northbound Hwy 90

To the assholes who have no problem with this: how many checkpoints do you drive through on your way to work?

You can see a picture of these vans via the earlier /. link

Comment: WebOS developer program (Score 1) 514

by Windrip (#37136290) Attached to: HP Spinning Off WebOS and Exiting Hardware Business

HP is committed to making the webOS developer program the world leader in developer benefits, growing the developer base, and helping developers showcase their products. Over the coming months, the webOS ecosystem will be growing dramatically as webOS is introduced to PCs and printers, and into the enterprise with a scale only HP can provide.

Jeebus, did anyone here sign on to this gobbler?


+ - When Patents Attack->

Submitted by Windrip
Windrip (303053) writes "Why would a company rent an office in a tiny town in East Texas, put a nameplate on the door, and leave it completely empty for a year? The answer involves a controversial billionaire physicist in Seattle, a 40 pound cookbook, and a war waging right now, all across the software and tech industries. Listen to This American Life and find out,"
Link to Original Source

+ - Supreme Court Removes "Willful Ignorance" Defense->

Submitted by Windrip
Windrip (303053) writes "The Supremes provide yet another way for patent holders to crush their opponents.
Consider the affirmation of the Federal Court ruling in Global Tech Appliances, Inc. v. SEB S.A.. This decision has ramifications far beyond the infringement:

The plaintiff SEB (the respondent in this case) holds a patent on a design for a deep-fat fryer; the defendant Global Tech (here, the petitioner) reverse-engineered SEBâ(TM)s fryer and marketed a competing fryer.

You really want to rethink your "I don't read patents to avoid damages" strategy: The U.S. Supreme Court has now flat-lined that advice

But the remainder of the opinion is quite interesting. Adopting a suggestion from the oral argument, the Court (with only Justice Kennedy dissenting) held that the judgment of the Federal Circuit nevertheless could be affirmed on the basis of Global Techâ(TM)s willful blindness.
... What is novel about this (and what will make this one of the most commonly cited decisions of the Term) is the Court's explanation for the first time that criminal statutes which require proof of knowing or willful conduct are satisfied by proof of willful blindness.


Link to Original Source

Comment: Re:Misleading headline and summary (Score 1) 394

by Windrip (#35518616) Attached to: US Reneges On SWIFT Agreement

Neither the summary nor the headline are misleading.

Still, I'm heartened you took the time to read TFA.

After another four weeks, The BFDI told Alvaro's office in a telephone call that the request had still not been forwarded to American authorities. There was, still no agreement between the US authorities and the BFDI. The American authorities would require still more data from the applicant. Nevertheless, Alvaro consented to have the data in question forwarded to the American authorities.

emphasis mine

The reporter uses the phrase "There was, still...". Almost a year later, there was still no agreement between the BFDI and the the Americans This is a crucial point, as such an agreement was a condition of the treaty.

Consider the phrase "The American authorities would require still more data..." I infer the Americans had been involved from the start. After all, how would the BFDI know the Americans required still more data if they hadn't been communicating with them? Why would the BFDI speak for their interlocutors when it comes to the need for such information?

Finally, the reporter states that

At the same time, the agency said it had no information or authority to determine whether and who has accessed his data in the US.

Again, providing this information is one of the conditions of the treaty. The U.S. must provide this information.

+ - US reneges on SWIFT agreement->

Submitted by Windrip
Windrip (303053) writes "It seems the U.S. is not living up to its end of the bargain when it comes to the SWIFT data agreement.

When the agreement was signed last year, every EU citizen was guaranteed the right to know if the American authorities had retrieved their banking information, and which authorities had requested the information. Now. one European Parliamentarian, Alexander Alvaro shows that, once again, the Americans are not honoring their treaties."

Link to Original Source

Comment: This is a waste of time (Score 2) 348

by Windrip (#35185460) Attached to: Why IP Laws Are Blocking Innovation

This is simply more of Obama's rhetorical slight-of-hand.

The Executive branch doesn't make the law. It may choose what laws to enforce and in the process do Hollywood's bidding, but that's another issue.

The Executive can propose legislation (think PATRIOT act), but how often is s such legislation enacted?

I don't like to say this, but consider the Tea Party caucus in the House as our friends on this issue. They just succeeded in handing stinging defeats to House leadership. We ought to try and make the case that is the subject of this /. article to that caucus and its allies. Politics is education; this didactic moment will soon pass. It's only a matter of time before they are entirely co-opted by "External Forces".

Weekends were made for programming. - Karl Lehenbauer