FreeflyChile

As a (new) Hawks fan, the fiancee and I were probably irritating our neighbors with Luongo's goaltending...amazing, the Hawks should have scored 2-3 more goals! I never really got into hockey before, but having gone to 2 games this year and with it being in HD, it's really freaking fun to watch. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJETon8XRxY

I don't know about direct-play formats, but I got a 42 inch Samsung about 2 years ago and still love it. Also, as they go thinner and thinner, the price on the 'regular' LCDs is dropping (so instead of an ultra-thin one you get one that's just thin). For example: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Samsung+-+40%22+Class+/+1080p+/+120Hz+/+LCD+HDTV/9791235.p?id=1218175543621&skuId=9791235 vs http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Samsung+-+40%22+Class+/+1080p+/+120Hz+/+LED-LCD+HDTV/9783579.p?id=1218173772681&skuId=9783579 I didn't look at the specs, and I'm sure there are some differences beyond the size (such as inputs, contrast ratio, etc.)...so I guess the question is how much that matters to you vs the price difference.

I don't know how you, or anyone for that matter can do that these days. I don't go crazy without my phone for a day or something, but definitely don't like not having my blackberry on me at all times. Most people probably secretly laugh at me for always having a bluetooth earpiece on too... Hey, I walk with crutches - you try picking up a phone while having to hold them... Agreed - other than perhaps for work-related stuff, it's not critical for me to have a phone all the time, but not having it for the last day or so until it got fixed did feel very strange. Hell, even having the loaner crap phone for 2 days before the HD2 came into the store (they had to get a new shipment) felt strange because I couldn't check my email on it!

Regardless of whether or not this is protected, I'd rather not try that with the Chicago PD and suffer the ass-kicking that is sure to follow.

I remember joking with colleagues at Motorola about this dystopian future of cell phones back in 2001 when even the concept of "rebooting your phone" was laughable. It really keeps me from getting excited about consumer electronics like I used to. yeah, i know what you mean. I still get pretty excited when i hear "Nintendo announces..." related to hardware.

Thanks for the advice. Went to T-Mobile, basically just did a hard reset, no re-provisioning needed. Wasn't a big deal since i didn't have anything on there yet, but i'll have to be careful about backing everything up since you lose any personal info you have on there.

as a fairly new hockey fan... go Hawks!

Wife & I both have them and with my neophyte skills...I love it. Had some problems accessing the net at first with mine to, went back and the reset it, that was 4 months ago and not a problem since. Might want to add a memory chip right away though...really helps. thanks for the tip - it comes with a memory card, so I don't think that's the issue. Also, glad to know it's not hopeless. The fact I jumped right in, didn't download updates and probably should have followed the setup instructions didn't help. So maybe I just need to format it and start from scratch. I'd lose the 2 transformers movies it came with as a promotion, but that's not a big deal.

So I got an HTC HD2 - and managed to crash the OS within 2 days - gotta go to T-Mobile to get it fixed. Basically, my first problem was that I accidentally told the phone to download all of my emails from yahoo..going back to 2002. So that made it both a) work very slowly and b) drained the battery (wasn't fully charged). Then, after some research online, I followed their advice and turned off HTC sense and went to Windows default. it seemed to work OK, so I figured it was the download of the emails that made it work badly. So I went back to HTC Sense and got a perpetual "starting Sense" message on the home page. So I hit the windows button - and now can't access settings, can't access the home page (nothing happens when i hit the home button on the face of the phone and the home icon in the windows screen doesn't work). Does anyone else have this phone and have had issues with it? I really like it, and it has potential, but if I can break it this easily, I may have to down-grade...

Hi all, As a quasi-follow-up to my previous post about laptops, I am shopping for one currently. I saw that there's a new feature that for the moment is Best Buy-only - Push 2 TV. my understanding is that if you have the proper chipset (Intel Wireless or something of the sort) you can use it, along with the router and HDMI connection to a TV, to display your computer's screen on the TV wirelessly. I did a bit of research and found that as this is relatively new, it has a bit of lag between input on the comp and display (so it'd be fine for streaming movies, but not OK for gaming or for applications requiring any kind of precision). I was wondering if anyone here had any experience with this (DSE??)...I'm curious about it but the computers offered with this at Best Buy aren't what I am looking for so I doubt I'll get it. Just the same, I'd be great to be able to sit on my couch and do work on a 60 inch display.

Hi all, I had a question about video editing on a laptop... If the laptop screen only supports 720p, is it still possible to import video in 1080, edit it, and then burn it onto blu-ray compatible media without losing the native resolution? I understand that either the video won't display on the laptop or it will be down-scaled to play in 720p, but I was just wondering if the native resolution of the video would be lost. My inclination is that it wouldn't, but I just figured I'd ask. Thanks!

This is completely outside of the discussion of whether the pilots were justified, etc., but after watching that video my first thought was "wow, if you showed this to me outside of context i would have thought it was Call of Duty" - I play a lot of games, but really had forgotten how close they got to reality - especially the level where it looks like that.

...one day we'll go all the way....

The guy in the coma is not making any decisions. The guy with the low IQ is making decisions, even if he may not understand the consequences - removing understanding, consequence or responsability from a decision does not disqualify it from being a decision.

Deciding not to decide is a decision.

Isn't Mary supposed to have gone to heaven with her physical form intact?

As someone who's very much in debt because of law school, passed the patent bar, and is now working on an LLM...I would hope I do at this point, or else I wasted a lot of time and money!!! What I said is very oversimplified (to answer a previous post/comment), I realize, but it's my 'general' opinion as to the difference between copyrights and patents and why I would have much larger concerns with modifying the patent term versus the copyright term.

That's only because corporations hadn't figured out how to work the system yet. Look at "Steamboat Willie", the first Mickey Mouse cartoon. It's old enough it should have been public domain by now, but Disney keeps paying - err, "lobbying" - congress to extend copyright law, rather than let it fall to public domain. You can bet that if corporations are allowed to keep patents on genes, they will make sure to keep them as long as capitalism is alive. Patents and copyrights are two different animals - I don't think you're thinking they're the same thing, but the way that rules are made and fought for/against in each are very different. I agree - if the companies were allowed to keep patents on genes, they'd try to do so. In patents, though, the competition makes it so that for any company trying to keep a monopoly on something VERY valuable, there are dozens willing to fight against it. My personal opinion - copyrights protects 'luxuries' (arts, cultural stuff), patents protect 'necessity' (science).

Yes, and you'd only get patent protection for the part that YOU invented. In this case, based only on the article (I haven't read the decision), it seems like the issue will be whether the company is claiming a patent over a naturally occurring gene (what the judge said), or whether they modify it to a degree that it's not 'natural' (what the company claims). I agree - if the patent is on a gene that is unchanged from what occurs naturally, it should not be patentable. I wonder if the procedure, machinery, etc. they use to isolate this, to diagnose and any medicine used to treat this have already been patented by them or others... Oh, and anything discovered by Newton or Maxwell would have long since been in the public domain... ..though I understand what you're getting at.

The problem with this is that there's a big difference between owning the physical copy of something and the right to make it yourself. There's a tremendous difference in value. In your example, using it to the digital realm - if DSE produces a book and has an original copy in his hard drive or even printed out on his desk - the value in his work is in the ability to distribute it to others, and gain the rewards of his work. Sure, his copy of it may be worth the amount of paper it's printed on + whatever it is worth to have the original copy, but that PALES in comparison to the value of being able to exclusively sell the book. He can do whatever he likes with his copy of the book, sell it for 30 bucks, burn it, whatever. So can you with any CD you legally purchased. (caveat - no clue how much a book DSE publishes goes for.

While I don't dispute the effect of the arts and culture on the human psyche, or that music, literature, etc greatly enriches a person's life and therefore, contributes to happiness, I think that - when broken down to a basic level - copyright is about 'want' and patent protection is about 'need'. That's why I think that the patent term length is a more critical subject than copyright terms. I also think copyright term should be shorter. I just don't think it should be shorter than patents. Also, my opinion is that if patent terms are to be changed, it should be broken down into the subject matter/science area of the patent - but that's another discussion entirely. As far as the ease of reproduction and making money off of your work - I may be generalizing here but the term 'starving artist' exists for a reason. Also, I'd argue that our ability to research, produce, innovate and publish has INCREASED significantly during the recent past. Digital photography and video, increase in computing power for cheaper than ever before, internet outlets such as youtube, flickr, etc. have made it much easier than ever before for anyone that has a creative eye, ear, etc. to bring their idea to fruition without requiring help from middlemen, record companies, film developers, etc. The (US) patent term length changed in 1992. Copyright term length changed in 1976 and, most recently, in 1998. I also think that while patents and copyright are both under the intellectual property umbrella, they are really apples and oranges so using one as a benchmark for the other does not work very well. However - I would love to hear more specifics as to what you think the terms should be for each (patents or copyrights) should be, and why.

First of all, copyright law protects EXPRESSION - not IDEAS. In fact, this is a factor used by courts to decide infringement - how close the expression is to the idea (i.e. how many different possible ways there is to express something...something that may come up in things like computer software, for example). The closer the expression is to a single way to express the idea, the narrower the protection afforded by the courts. Nevertheless, the plans or article themselves could be the subject of copyright law - but the copyright would ONLY be for that SPECIFIC expression - so I could build the thing based on your plans - I wouldn't even have to draw up my own - and you would not have a copyright case against me. So again, not applicable. As far as your second statement - I find that very interesting. My opinion is that the current copyright term is too long, but I don't have a huge problem with it. I especially disagree with the notion that the copyright term should be less than the patent term. In my opinion, patents (as you note) are meant to protect practical, scientific development. Therefore, denying the use of a technological development to society is FAR more harmful than denying the use of a work of art to the public. If I am able to invent a new machine that can predict cancer and cure it before it happens, denying that to the public for an extended period of time is FAR more harmful than my inability to use songs in skydiving videos or make my own re-cut version of Avatar. Not having access to the technical developments of society could kill (or at least fail to prevent deaths, prevent our development as a species, etc). Not having access to artistic works is simply an irritation in comparison. This is just my opinion. Also, your comment on the current state of the patent term is interesting - can you provide more detail as to why you think that/what you'd prefer to see as far as patent terms? I love talking about this stuff, so thanks for engaging in the discussion!

I'm also sure that the few selected ones would like to keep copyright laws the way they are. Mostly people from show business and entertainment (like the ones you listed). And I didn't say copyright is less valuable... if anything it's more valuable since we spend way more than we have in the past. But the value of original copyright laws was to protect intellectual property which was scarce at best in those days. There was some author music (you could probably list all authors on one sheet of paper), some paintings, some books. That was it. That was all human race had as far as authors went and we had to protect that at all cost. Today copyright is not used for what it was designed, but only for making money. There's nothing wrong with making money but doing so and being protected much more than anyone else trying to make some money is wrong... Also copyright does not stop at the theater door or bookstore entrance. It covers _everything_ that was made by humans. While it may seem like a good idea to have a copyright on your favorite picture (and not having others copy it or even making money from it) I'm pretty sure you'd be pissed if someone came up with super-duper-skydiving-safety-device-that-saves-you-no-matter-what, make one for himself and tell everyone else to f**k off. Under current laws he has every right to do so and no one can even attempt to copy him or else he'll sue you. So the thing that would save lives is not only invented and unavailable to anyone but the author, it will remain to be unavailable 70 years after the prick dies if his family is as nuts as he is. That is not cool and having laws that promote such behavior is wrong. I understand this was extreme hypothetical case, but the same goes for a picture I shot and threw away. 70 years after my death? Really? If you can't make profit from your work while you're alive (and everyone you listed has done just that) than you probably shouldn't hold back those who could. There will be change... and it will not be good for authors. Currently authors are treated like endangered species and are being protected more than any truly endangered species could even dream of. Of course we'll still need some kind of copyright (since there will always be people who will use others' work to make money) but the current form is bad for everyone except for selected few. And this is coming from a guy whose career depends on authorship of his work. The AAD example you cited would be the scope of patent protection, not copyright, which has a duration of 20 years. And why would I be pissed if I was excluded from using/selling/making his invention? I don't feel entitled to automatically freely enjoy the fruits of someone else's labor.

Actually, I wasn't implying that handing over the negatives would mean he handed over his copyright. I was merely asking because if the original photographer did not have any record of having taken the photo (especially given how long ago it was), then the photographer would have a more difficult time proving copyright ownership (even before infringement). Also, my guess is that because the photo was a 'throw-away', the photographer probably never registered it as well. This doesn't mean the photographer doesn't have CR on the photo, just that their ability to act on infringement is limited. As far as your argument that current copyrights are less valuable than they used to be - I think that James Cameron, Michael Jackson's estate, Hugh Hefner, J.K. Rowling, etc... probably disagree with you.

Not saying it's OK, but just asking from a strictly practical perspective because I was curious.