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Comment Re:Warrant only applies to France (Score 1, Insightful) 259

I'm French, and I'm baffled. How can this kind of comment make it to Insightful ? In case you're not aware, the French have no cyclists to be proud of. None. Why we would kill an American's career to facilitate the win of a Spanish, Netherlander, another American, a British, another Netherlander, a German, an Italian... shall I go on ? Oh... right, because we're proud.

Comment Peter Fleischer's blog on this... (Score 5, Informative) 197

Patents

Submission + - i4i Says OpenOffice Does Not Infringe Like MS Word (gcn.com) 2

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes: "With all the armchair lawyers and pundits out there, it's interesting to see that i4i believes that OpenOffice does not infringe upon their patent. As you may remember, i4i's patent is the one that lead to a permanent injunction barring Microsoft from selling, using, encouraging the use of, testing, marketing or supporting any copies of Microsoft Word which can open files containing custom XML, subject to a bit of leniency for supporting infringing copies already sold and with respect to removing the feature in future versions. Lest anyone think that the ODF will win over OOXML because of this, keep in mind that Microsoft has its own broad XML document patent, which issued just two weeks ago (and filed in December 2004), and they're telling the Supreme Court to apply the Bilski ruling narrowly, so that it doesn't invalidate patents like theirs (and i4i's). After all, Microsoft can afford $280 million infringement fines in ways that most companies and individuals cannot. Then again, given that Microsoft's new patent has only two independent claims (claim #1 and claim #12), and both of those claims 'comprise' something using an 'XML file format for documents associated with an application having a rich set of features', maybe they wouldn't be that hard to work around if you just make sure any otherwise infringing format is only associated with an application that doesn't have a rich set of features."
PC Games (Games)

Submission + - The problems with porting games (bit-tech.net)

mr_sifter writes: "There's a large lexicon of monosyllabic, four-letter words for describing something you don't like — but only PC gamers use the word "port" with such a fervent degree of repulsion. Common complaints about console ports include meagre graphics options, dodgy third-person camera angles, poorly thought-out controls and sparsely distributed save points. In this feature, bit-tech.net talks to developers of games such as Dead Space, Red Faction and Tales of Monkey Island to find out why porting games between the three current consoles and the PC is so difficult. Radically different CPU, graphics and memory architectures play their part, as do the differences in control methods and the rules the Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo set about how games should work on their systems."

Comment Re:H1Bs are wrong (Score 5, Insightful) 574

Funny, during my H1b days, I always thought I was paid at least as much as my colleagues. I went through my company closing, and had support of everybody around me. I worked for 3 different companies in 5 years (a couple of big ones), and never once was felt pressured as an H1B. What do I know, maybe I am the exception?

Comment Re:...because H1Bs are forms, not people (Score 5, Interesting) 574

Having been in this situation a while back, no, there is officially no grace period. As far as I know, it just happens that the administration lets people transfer anyways. I have heard 10 days, 2 months, nothing... I personally had my H1b transfer initiated in the couple of days after my company closed. Technically, you can apply for transfer, start at your new job, and have your transfer denied (or so they say, I never actually heard about a denied transfer). fun stuff!

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