Starving the Trolls · 20 February, 09:46 PM
How hard would it be to change the system by just this tiny amount: in order to bring a patent infringement suit, you would have to actually be providing a competing product in the space that you are complaining about – thus showing that there’s actual harm?
James Robertson
I’ve argued that in order for a patent to be enforceable, it should be backed by an actual implementation. The problem with that is with inventors and entrepreneurs seeking patent protection so they can seek help from prospective partners without risking their invention. Maybe there should be a second class of patent for this purpose – with a more limited time frame, to protect entrepreneurs while reducing the risk of purely speculative patents and rewarding failed enterprises that just happened to patent their idea.
Ideas are worthless without execution, and as it is, the practice of patent trolling completely subverts the intended economic incentive behind patents. I’m amazed that corporate America hasn’t thrown their collective weight at Congress and forced reform. I suspect that the attitude is an intellectual property Cold War – the large patent-holders are building a system of mutually assured destruction and regard the patent terrorists as a manageable cost of doing business.
— Gordon Weakliem
Converting Word to PDF on the Cheap · 10 February, 12:20 PM
I maintain the website for my daughter’s preschool, and from time to time I get a Word document that they want posted as a PDF. One of these days I’ll purchase a conversion program, but I needed to do a quick conversion of a couple small documents and in any case I’d rather use someone’s demo-ware than buy something not knowing whether it really worked. I tried a few services:
- PDF Online accepts a Word doc upload and emails you the results. Unfortunately, I never got the email, even after retrying.
- Doc2PDF did the job for free but completely messed up the fonts on one doc – the text was there but it was difficult to read.
- PDF Converter – Ended up doing the job the best. As a free service, it has certain limitations. You’re limited to small documents (no problem in this case), and you’re limited to one conversion every 30 minutes. The pay service is online-only, and membership-based, which is unfortunate – I don’t need to do these conversions all that often and a monthly service doesn’t make sense. That said, I was impressed and if I did need to do Doc => PDF conversions routinely, I would definitely consider them.
— Gordon Weakliem
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Windows, Still Out Of Touch · 4 February, 06:56 AM
You’d think after 30 years or so, someone would have thought to put the touch command into Windows.
copy /b test.txt +,,
I have no idea what the syntax of the command (particularly the ,, part) translates too, but it does work (on Windows XP at least). I told a co-worker about this and his response was “ouch. I’ll bet there’s a better way to do that in powershell”. A cursory check on Google reveals that this has been done, but most definitely not in a one-liner.
— Gordon Weakliem
QOTD · 28 January, 11:19 AM
“Everyone gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.” – Gertrude Stein [via Cruft]
Now that is a quote for the ages.
— Gordon Weakliem
The Future of News · 20 January, 06:54 PM
PBS NewsHour New York Times to Charge for Web Content (MP3"). They had an interview including Bill Grueskin, formerly of the Wall Street Journal Online, and he had several very interesting things to say. I think that the NYT is going to make the paywall work. The trick is putting enough content out there to get readers from search engines, but not so much as to give away the store. The NYT has enough readers who value the content, very much like PBS. Locally, I doubt the Denver Post could get away with it, though they seem to be locking down the sports section. Excellent local sports coverage might be the one thing that can save local papers.
It’s obvious that the newspapers really screwed up ads. Nobody saw Craigslist coming, and when it was upon them, they should have followed suit and gone totally free for ads except for certain sections – help wanted like Craigslist, and probably real estate, who already pay big money for print exposure.
— Gordon Weakliem
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