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Comment: Re:Easy answer (Score 1) 1199

by TheReverandND (#41680691) Attached to: Hiring Smokers Banned In South Florida City
It does MOST DEFINITELY run afoul of anti-discrimination law. But it's quite easy to make a convincing argument that the practice of smoking is detrimental to their job performance, even if the the supposition is completely invalid, it just has to sway the opinion of a judge to allow it, and then be defensible enough to survive appeal. The problem becomes ultimately that it's impossible to convince people by and large that a practice is discriminatory if it doesn't affect them or anyone they can relate to in a way that is apparent to them. So discrimination against smokers will never be equated by most people with a similar practice against people who eat slim jims or who drink nothing but soda or those who simple refuse to eat green vegetables, when they are in fact equivalent practices both logically and under the law.

Comment: Re:Honest question (Score 1) 203

Not that I wish to continue this as an argument but your retort is left with 2 flaws. 1) you appear to have highlighted breach of contract but fail to see the connection. That contract included licensing intellectual property related to java, and some of that ip would be patent licenses pertaining to the JVM. Furthermore Microsoft had patents of it own in this case that were the core of their argument that since they licensed Java and owned these other ip assets they were entitled to slam them together as they saw fit. Even though that was well beyond the scope of their Java license. So the assertion that patents were not involved would be ignorant to say the least. 2) Microsoft asked the judge upon ruling for clarification of Microsofts ability to develop similar systems and to establish to scope of Suns Java patents. The argument being that if they couldn't merge Java with these other elements could they build a Java-like system to fill that gap. And the judge indeed indicated that their prohibition on Java was just on Java and that they could develop something like it so long as they didn't infringe on Suns ip as they were now barred from using it.

Comment: Re:Honest question (Score 1) 203

Nope not confused. The Sun vs MS Java fight was a cluster of patents on both sides. Thus why a judge ruled that whilst Microsoft had violated it's license to java, it could develop a similar system, i.e .NET. While I have heard these rumors before, I can't find anything in the .NET framework or how it works to suggest that they licensed Java tech. Oracles patents in these areas are actually pretty Java specific, whilst Microsoft's patents for .NET are very broad. (like every MS patent) The core of my belief is that Microsoft must only have something "on paper" if you will. It's something they are pretty sure will lead to a protracted legal battle so not even they actually want to go to court to enforce it, but it's enough to make companies pay. That's why I believe it's something abstract and only loosely connected to Microsoft's actual patents. And most other components of Android you could simple replace with other known non-infringing implementations, since Microsoft has also made these kinds of threats about Linux, these components are out there. But rewriting Davik is a much harder task without licensing tech from MS or Oracle. I would imagine RIM licenses Java. Everyone sues them for anything so if Oracle hasn't filed, they are licensed.

Comment: Re:Honest question (Score 1) 203

I think the root of the issue is Microsoft's possession of certain Virtual Machine, JIT, and native code generation patents it uses in the .NET runtime. My feeling is they believe Davik infringes on their patents. I don't think RIM or HP are using that type of technology in their OSes.


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+ - Zephyr solar plane flies 7 days non-stop->

Submitted by chichilalescu

maybe we can attach some netbooks, and extend the internet to the clouds."

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+ - Comet in a Console->

Submitted by stephenlb
stephenlb writes "Comet real-time push in command line scripts now available. PHP and Ruby can both Publish and Subscribe within a console. Use comet in a console with two functions publish() and subscribe() made for programmers. The walkthrough uses PHP to publish and subscribe between a browser and console. Following the tips, developers can write code to speak between Ruby or PHP in two separate terminal windows on the same or separate machines without configuration."
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Pedro Matias Sets New Texting Record At Mobile World Cup 70

Posted by ScuttleMonkey
from the text-invalid-if-bff-appears-anywhere-in-it dept.
Pedro Matias showed off his mad txtin sklz at this year's Mobile World Cup and managed to set a new record for "fastest, most accurate" texts as determined by the event's corporate owners. "history was made when Portugal's Pedro Matias set the new World's Record for texting by typing a 264-character text in just 1 minute 59 seconds (besting the previous record by 23 seconds). Of course, each Mobile World Cup must have its share of controversy -- in this case, Engadget Mobile's very own Chris Ziegler led a silent protest during the awards ceremony. The group was reportedly upset over the use of QWERTY phones (the LG enV3 in this case) to break the record."
