So, maybe I have too much faith in people here, but I think this post is satire. While it's an extreme example, the attitude the author espouses- that there is one right way to do things and anyone doing otherwise is an idiot -is definitely not unheard. Hell, I've been plenty guilty of it myself, looking down my nose at someone using Eclipse as I struggle to remember 8 button long Emacs shortcuts.
Publicly traded American companies are obligated under fiduciary duty to act in the best interest of their shareholders. They are not, however, required to have _only_ their stock holders interests at heart.
Hmm I should read up more about the legal obligations. Thanks.
However by that definition it seems to be that if they are operating in the best interests of the shareholders they can't act in anyones elses interests if that causes any expenditure.
Obviously I'm not saying they can't act in the interests of others, but only incidentally and when it coincides with the interests of the shareholders.
I hesitate to contribute anecdotal evidence but my experience has been very similar. In college, I routinely took 200 mg caffeine pills and I would always stop cold turkey after exams, when I was usually hitting about 300 mg a day. Definitely felt the alertness almost every time I consumed more caffeine and, surprisingly, never had any withdrawal symptoms outside of drowsiness.
Wow, pretty impressive stuff so far. Congratulations on all of your progress so far (assuming the poster is also the author); I'd love to see a blog post describing some of the more technical aspects of the project.
Thanks! Yeah there's plenty of stuff to talk about, I should probably spend more time writing. Some quick info in the meantime:
CraftStudio is built in C# with XNA, which is primarly a game framework but worked very well for CraftStudio. I built my own UI library on top of it (open source, http://bitbucket.org/sparklinlabs/nuclearwinter).
I built my own Operational Transform library (for collaborative text editing à la Google Docs). It's pretty barebone but works well enough for my purpose. I open sourced it: https://bitbucket.org/sparklinlabs/nuclearot
I've been working on the Mac and Linux port with MonoGame's develop3d branch (http://monogame.codeplex.com/ - it's a reimplementation of XNA for Mono, using OpenTK). There's still a bunch of bad bugs to fix before release but it runs. What the MonoGame guys accomplished is really impressive.
Fair point; I was too quick to comment there. I'm curious though: are you familiar with the reasoning behind the development of design patents? I've done some light research and not turned up much. It seems that trademark and copyright already provide fairly expansive coverage for non-functional IP, so I don't quite see the intent behind the design patent laws.
"Design patent secures for their owner a fourteen-year right to exclude others from making, using, selling or importing the claimed product and, thus, allows time to build up secondary meaning necessary to acquire product design trade dress protection. Trade dress protection can last for as long as product design trade dress remains in use and continues to identify the source of goods to consumers. "
And other one on infringement:
"Infringement of the design patent is found when an ordinary observer, giving the attention of a purchaser, perceives the patented and the accused designs as substantially the same, in light of the prior art."
In the court opinions on Gorham v White (1871):
"It is not essential to identity of design that the appearance should be the same to the eye of an expert. If, in the eye of an ordinary observer, giving such attention as a purchaser usually gives, two designs are substantially the same -- if the resemblance is such as to deceive such an observer and sufficient to induce him to purchase one supposing it to be the other -- the one first patented is infringed by the other."
This is why if Samsung creates a product whose design is substantially similar to Apple's, then infringement may occur. This is why the jury consists of "ordinary" people who are the right people to make the judgement call. Too many HN readers are complaining that the jurors should be technically minded because they are thinking of utility patents, and not design patents. You also fall in the same boat, but I'm guessing most HN readers don't even realize there is such thing as "design patents" and "trade dress protection". This is why lawyers are paid to do the arguing, while we sit back and yell from the sidelines.
Ah, thank you very much. With this context, the verdict does make more sense now. I have one last question for you though: I've seen mention of design patents for a bezel around a screen or rectangle with round corners, however should a design patent not cover the entire device? It seems if the idea is to prevent consumer confusion, devices should be viewed holistically, not piecemeal.
Unfortunately, I'm not an IP lawyer. This is why lawyers exist -- they know the historical reasons for why one should file a design patent piecemeal.
My guess is there must have been a prior case where one patented an entire device and the patent was not able to penalize an infringer that may have had a slightly different device. It's possible the defense may have shown that the patent is only valid if the devices are in the exact same category. But who knows, this is just a guess.
I should also note that I'm a different person that the one whom you were replying to in your previous threads.
$2000. Not quite ready for the mainstream, or even the DEA, considering a 3TB conventional hard drive is $160. ($2000 would buy all their current storage and more!)
Not to derail the thread here, but I'm genuinely curious: what prompted you to pick up degrees in both CS and philosophy? I know pg is in a similar boat, however I didn't meet anyone in undergraduate or graduate school pursuing that path. Given how important reasoning is in both disciplines, I don't think it's an unnatural coupling; however, I'd be very interested to know if you felt they complemented each other.
It turns out that philosophy and programming are distressfully similar. You build a structure out of logic and feel proud of yourself until somebody finds a bug, and then you scramble around trying to reassemble your logic structure so it doesn't have the bug. The main difference is that you can test a program, so the turnaround time is measured in minutes rather than, in some cases, centuries.
And here you've nicely summarized why I think I've seen so many technically-inclined philosophy grads working as sysadmins...
Totally a case of selection bias, given I'm one of those and notice them, but I've long been convinced that a love of systems creation and debugging is the common attribute between philosophers and sysadmins.
Not to derail your question, but my brother got a BA in philosophy, decided that he was really more interested in music, got a BMus, decided he was interested in the application of technology to music teaching, got an MA in "interdisciplinary" (music and computing), then decided machine learning was cool and decided to teach a machine learning system to play violin, and is now getting a PhD in "electrical engineering" (which is really CS in this case).
So in at least some cases, people get odd combinations of degrees more by accident than design.
Sorry for the incoming long-windedness. I've never articulated this so I'm not sure what to say.
Freshman year I came in as Computer Science and took a class called Minds and Machines that was a sort of intro to philosophy and cognitive science (two years later, the school got their Cognitive Science degree approved/accredited and the Minds and Machines program because the Cognitive Science program)
I love Computer Science but I really love writing and ethics[1]. I love communication and the art (and science) of effectively conveying ideas. I'd probably love advertising, to be honest.
I love all majors and subjects though so maybe that's not accurate enough. Anyway I went into college wanting to do science, and I picked Computer Science because it had the lowest do-your-own-thing cost. If a Biologist or Engineer wants to do his own thing he may need a lab or machining equipment. Prices for that stuff has really come down in the last 50 years but its nowhere near CS. All you need is a computer. I loved the idea that my only restriction to making things was time. It was the people's major! (cue communist imagery)
I had no idea about this whole world of humanities until I took that first class. The teacher was also my advisor-to-be if I dual majored and the logic part of the Phil curriculum had its own appeal. So many more opportunities to write papers than my CS classes!
If I had to do college all over again I'd probably try to do English/Philosophy/CS, with perhaps CS as the minor. I have enormous respect for liberal arts majors, but more-so than other majors, and I think this is very important, the value of humanities degrees are very much what you put into them. It didn't seem hard in my school at least to get a Phil/Communications/English degree compared to a STEM degree, but that in itself only meant that what you got out of a humanities degree it was what you put in. I definitely found myself finding humanities majors far, far more socially capable than the engineer majors, almost to an embarassing degree.[2]
Anyway I do think the two majors compliment each other. It seems only natural, especially with the intersection of Logic. But I also think it compliments CS because I think the largest deficiency in every other CS and engineering grad I've met is that they have a hard time communicating their ideas and debating others effectively. Philosophy helps with that. A lot, in my opinion.
[1] in the Aristotelian/Kant/Mill/Humanity's greater good/etc sense of the word, not the vague-ideas-gotten-by-parents-and-peers sense which is usually picked up on (see for instance almost the entire abortion debate)
[2] I'm quite the introvert and it took me a long time to overcome the social interaction thing that seemed to plague so many of my peers in college. I was supremely shy as a kid and generally liked to hide behind my mom whenever we went somewhere. My 8th grade class was just 21 people (two groups of 10 and 11), and my high school was just 500-600 people. I was unused to, well, interaction.
In my freshman year of college it hit me. My college (RPI) was known for being an introverted place and I met so many great people who almost literally never left their rooms. Great minds and personalities who were self-sequestered from the world.
It felt tragic sometimes. I met and found a lot of people wanted to meet people but had a great fear of simply being in public spaces more and exchanging pleasantries. Others still, and this was not an uncommon opinion, would disparage the idea of small talk as useless. It's funny but, of all places, once I came to college and met enough varied and amazing people I became vastly, vastly less shy. It just wasn't worth it to be shy when there were so many great people to meet.
Wow, that's incredibly interesting; thank you for explaining it to me. I think my view of a lot of a lot of liberal arts majors (the curriculum, not the students) had been tainted by the people who coast through, however your explanation seems far more accurate. Your assessment of the social abilities of the respective majors is dead-on in my experience as well (especially concerning communication skills). Again, thanks for your time and extensive response!
Maybe this is simply personal opinion, but I generally find it difficult to take aesthetic advice from a website with a relatively uninspired or outdated design like this. Perhaps I just have bad taste
