Apple loses patent-infringement trial over Cover Flow, Time Machine - Page 4

Even as final-year undergrads we did go to seminars and talks at the university and research institutions, as well as lectures of course, in the preceding years.

I wouldn't publicly call out a lecturer or researcher, that would just be rude. However we might have asked questions at the end of the session that would reveal if they knew what they were talking about.

It is true that a PhD is about persistence, and after that more persistence and a good dose of politics.

For Biology another big issue that I faced, and this was even before big pharma would have been involved in the research and patenting, was, firstly, the animal experimentation (eg. mice), secondly, f*king majorly with nature when we know so little and the environment is going to pot, and thirdly, not being sure of the validity of somebody's hard-earned donation of $100 to research going to pay for 2ml of specialty enzymes manufactured by a huge biomedical company.

My world view is slightly different now, but like I said, mainly I just didn't like the monotonous, repetitive lab work that could be done by highly-trained monkeys or at least robots.

Yeah, I don't understand how they could have a case about any organization by time. In copyright law (as opposed to patent law), the Supreme Court ruled about 15 years ago that you could no longer obtain copyright based on obvious compilations of facts, organized by obvious methods (alphabetically, chronologically, etc.) You could only obtain a copyright based on creative content or creative methods of organization. You would think that the same would apply to a patent: that organization of data based on time would be so obvious as to not to be patentable (except for the specific execution of the idea.) Same for cover flow. After all, what is cover flow? It's a bunch of JPGs that animate through touch controls. I don't see how that deserves a patent.

Only on the surface; tape backups work as you describe, but hard drive backups typically are done just as time machine with linked directory trees, so that only changed data is ever copied. There are several rsync-based scripts out there that have worked effectively the same as Time Machine for a decade or more that I am aware of.

Time machine simply opens these directories in cascading windows, same as the patent. This is not an innovation that should be patentable.

Some day we will get IP reform. Let's just hope it improves things!

Nice design. Looks like HyperCard.

Of course, by the time HyperCard came out, patents on the Rolodex had long since expired...

I'm due for a new MBP in about 6 months... don't worry Apple... I'll spring for a new iMac at the same time.

lol: You guess wrong.


And you still don't get it. NONE of what you are saying has the least dependency on superior intelligence. You may be a scientist, or an engineering faculty, but you are awful slow on the uptake.

Lets take this slowly based on your own words above: :Having done the tenure grind" Does that imply superior intelligence or superior persistence to successfully navigate? Well to almost any reading of that phrase, It implies persistence. I have yet to see any point you have raised in this thread that shows a need for superior intelligence in the tenure process, but you have repeatedly commented on the volume of things that need doing. Nothing wrong with persistence, it's not a denigration of any sort, it's just not as sexy as thinking of a high IQ.

Kind of a sad thing of a potential colleague, but altogether too common. I doubt you are actually trying to further establish my position that intelligence is not guaranteed when anyone gets a professorial appointment? Maybe it's more likely are you just so hung up on defending your honor as a faculty member that you are ignoring the rest of the conversation at you own peril?

As for your other tenure earning criteria, it takes ONE good grant. It may be the only good grant the researcher ever gets because they deliver poorly, but if they got that good grant and didn't generate any actual adverse bitching by the sponsor it will be enough. Peer letters stating excellence in the field? You need three, five, seven -- depending on the school? Well those come easier from conference committee working and a couple of those grad student generated papers per year than they do from self-generated research and presenting at conferences without doing the committee grind. Papers? Three or four per year, a book chapter or two and some invited speaking does nicely. It's not hard to generate 10-12 papers per year if you go overly small on the advancements put forth and have 4-5 grad students.

Stop defending yourself and look around at your colleagues. Now look hard at those that passed the grind as you state it and have tenure. Are you seeing a significant drop-off in output in ~20-25% of them? Seeing that in ANY of them should be an indication tenure isn't something magical for the institution or department. I have not talked to anyone that doesn't see too many of these post-tenure slackers in their departments, and the pre-tenure indicators are relatively consistent -- just read the above...

How did I slip up? You made a statement that loses both ways, it was the negation of a tautology -- You claimed I know nothing of a world I wrote of, academia and professors. Being that I am one, either a) I know nothing and that proves my point that professors are not automagically smart, or b) you are altogether incorrect because I do know something about the subject.

Your position, the previously mentioned negation of a tautology, was unwinnable, your petard kills you no matter what. You are stuck with the result, or maybe stuck with lots of shrapnel. Just because you're a bit slow on the uptake doesn't mean I slipped up in my use of the language.

You mistakenly conclude that because I do not address your fetish regarding intelligence that I do not understand your position. If you insist though, your attitude is a rather pedestrian view of two, not necessarily exclusive, classes of academics: those that did not receive tenure and/or those that view themselves as unappreciated geniuses (i.e., I can't get published or funded because my colleagues are too stupid to understand my work.) Given the degree of narcissism and hubris exhibited in your posts, I would conclude you fall in the latter class.


The statement implies persistence, but has no bearing on at all on the issue of intelligence. The issue of grind is orthogonal to intelligence, and is a characteristic of virtually all professions (e.g., medicine or the law).


Well, the fact that you did not see any points related to intelligence is due to two rather simple reasons. First, my post was in no way meant to address the issue of intelligence. Rather my post was a rebuttal to your claim that, in the absence of any evidence of scholarly activity, tenure can be achieved by ingratiating oneself with the administration. The second reason is, as stated above, your narcissism and hubris which leads you to believe that everyone should view the situation as you do, and if one does not, then one is stupid.


No I was not trying to address your fetish, as I stated above. It seems to be your issue not mine. Nor am I out to defend my honor, as it has not been besmirched. The academy is an honorable, but not perfect, profession.


This response makes no real sense within the context of your previous post, as you claimed that tenure was "social" and could be achieved simply by attending some faculty parties and being liked by the dean. Indeed, your post claimed that any sort of productivity was largely irrelevant, and that tenure of the result of politics. And yet, you admit here that some sort of productivity is necessary.


There is no defense, merely the rebuttal of a false claim.

I do not see what the post-tenure slacking issue has to do with intelligence. Actually, from a rational, optimality point of view, tenured professors should do the minimal amount of work for the University, collect a paycheck, and perform some outside activity to augment their income. Hence, the post-tenure slump is not necessarily indicative of a lack of intelligence.

Who claimed that tenure was some magical event. It is simply a series of steps required for lifetime employment. Magic has nothing to do with it.

I am willing to bet that if you talk to your colleagues about tenure, that the percentage of them that got tenure with 0 publications, 0 grants, and 0 students is 0.

Well that makes for a well conducted conversation. Not. Do you feel the need and right to merely ignore a current conversation's topic and context so you can spout off whatever you want whenever? You show your irrelevance to all that way.


Interesting, I never made the extreme claim you seem to have attributed to me, and you have serially resisted the corrections I have made to you broken opinion. Reductio ad absurdum isn't a very good tactic, and when done intentionally is a sign of intellectual dishonesty. But in your case I think your ego is just getting in the way because somehow you feel I am describing you, so you are just turning into a debate train-wreck.


Hubris? Really? Hubris would be the arrogance to ignore actual evidence, not my pointing to real life people that actually exist. You call it hubris to refuse to discount the many living breathing examples I see both daily and in my travels? That is about as bass-ackwards as arguments come. You do describe your own posts quite effectively though, were you looking in a mirror when you typed it up.