fatdog789

The consensus of that video was that calories eaten vs. used/expelled is the primary factor behind weight gain, but that some types of foods contribute more to weight gain than others for various reasons.

For example, fats are more easily passed through the digestive system (in the sense that they often just flow through to the other side), while sugars and starches are more likely to remain in the system and actually get digested. (Incidentally, the body's inability to fully digest fats is the way Alli works -- it makes your body even less capable of digesting fats, so if you eat too much fat, it comes out your ass.)

Bullshit. A repellant to a certain type of guys, maybe. But the hotter a chick is, the more dates she goes out on unless she chooses to be picky.

From the article: 1. He talks to Carol and she responds in a friendly manner. He gets her phone number and a proper date next week. 2. He does not approach Carol. He can enjoy another rewarding task (like reading the last issue of Plus). 3. He talks to Carol and she proves uninterested. He will feel miserable for a week.

No guy who is actually interested in a woman will pick option 2. In fact, it's a non-option.

No guy who will "feel miserable for a week" over some random chick turning him down for a date. If he does feel miserable for a week, he's got serious emotional problems or instability issues. A few minutes, maybe. A hours, possibly. if he has a really sensitive ego.

Finally, as to the anecdotal evidence at the bottom of the article which inspired the article, I call bullshit again. Uma Thurman and Jessica Simpson were both referring to boyfriends, not dates, and discussing how their careers and financial success was scaring off men who were intimidated by the spectre of being in a relationship with a more successful woman. (I watch Extra, so sue me.)

Outlook Web Access can be used with IE, Firefox, Chrome, or Opera without any problems or loss of functionality. If you are experiencing differently, the problem is on your end.

1) There is no confusion -- the physical and nutritional calorie are the same thing (EXCEPT that the nutritional calorie is usually the kilocalorie, or Calorie with a capital c, while the physical calorie is the plain old calorie). You have to remember that the calorie is an abstract unit.

The human body is a gigantic chemical engine, but it operates in a different way from a (jet/propulsive) engine. It's like the difference between LiOn and NiCad batteries. You measure them both in volts or wattage output or hours, but they operate in fundamentally different ways -- you can't use the same chemical mixtures, even though those mixtures have the same potential energy as measured by some abstract unit.

A Calorie is the energy needed to heat 1 kg of water by 1 degree.

Given that the human body is mostly water, and produces lots of heat, a calorie is a perfect way to measure the energy content of food.

Don't mark down his comment just b/c you disagree with it. He's accurate about the legal import of "buying" an e-book from Amazon.

Actually, the board members have a fiduciary duty to the shareholders to maximize corporate performance.

If the CEO isn't cutting it, it doesn't matter who he is, he should be fired.

Segway.

You're right, none of those examples would be sufficient for a verdict. But we're not talking about verdicts here, we're talking about access to code, which occurs a long, long time before trial.

Have you ever conducted discovery before, let alone patent-litigation discovery? Discovery is about your suspicions. If you already had facts, you would not need discovery.

Judges are very lenient about discovery requests; the bar is very low -- reasonable suspicion is enough. BTW, you aren't actually required to justify your discovery requests unless the opposing party challenges them, and even then, it's their burden to show that your discovery request is unreasonable and irrelevant.

Code would be a request for production of documents (which actually refers to any physical evidence). Patents are exclusively federal jurisdiction, so the FRCP applies. In federal court, discovery is granted for anything that could lead to relevant evidence

All of the examples you mentioned are enough to get discovery, which occurs before trial. I've seen discovery granted based upon the affidavit of an employee who was fired for cause for stealing from the defendant company. I've seen discovery granted based on a *news article about a company.

Now for the good news: SCOTUS is taking a patent case and is expected to invalidate method patents within the next year or two (which is pretty much all of the ones listed).

EDIT: Now for the best news: Most of those patents are not American and could not be patented in America (b/c the US does not allow patents on algorithms).

Plants absorb water, and the water may have chemical contamination.

It's exactly the same way that it works in animals.

Different plants are affected to different degrees.

Quite simple: a plaintiff is not required to have complete proof of the defendant's wrongful acts prior to suing them in court. The burden would be too high, and most aggrieved plaintiffs would be unable to recover the harm caused them by the defendant.

Plaintiffs have the right to get "discovery" to prove their claims because the defendant is usually the only person/company with evidence of the defendant's wrongful acts.

A fishing expedition is where the plaintiff cannot articulate any particular type of evidence sought, or how such evidence would be useful/necessary to its case, or how such evidence would result in evidence it could actually use.

Example: P sues D for patent infringement, demands in discovery D's head researcher's notes. Not fishing. Example 2: Same, except that P demands the CEO's call logs. Fishing, b/c not reasonably related to the patent infringement claim. Example 3: Same as Ex 2, except that P alleges that the CEO knew about the patent b/c he spoke with a former employee of P before launching D's infringing product. NOT fishing, b/c now it's shown to be relevant.

How to tell the difference: If you can't articulate something relevant to your claims that the discovery could reveal, it's a fishing expedition.

The use of the patented device/method/whatever, whether or not it is sold, is the infringement. Unwitting infringers are not subject to very harsh penalties, if any (unlike ignorance of the law, ignorance of a patent is a mitigating factor, b/c people are not required to research the patent archives for everything they do or make). Knowing infringers can be hit with the hammer of holy justice.

Example: patents on custom protein structures.

Note that pure research, i.e., at universities, is usually considered a defense b/c it is in the public interest to encourage actual research, but it is a defense that must be proven in court. However, research with any sort of commercial motive will usually not avoid infringement liability.

The reason that the "hundreds" of companies can get away with it is b/c it isn't worth the cost to the patent holder to pursue them in court -- damages would be minimal, and the chance that a defendant could find something that would overturn the patent (i.e., prior art) is too high a risk if there are at least some companies willing to pay for a license.

The only solution that will make an OS virus free is to not ever release or use the OS.

Indeed, even programming the OS itself could result in the introduction of viruses, so it's probably better to just leave it on the drawing board without ever actually implementing it.

That sounds just like ActiveX...which did not end the world.

In fact, ActiveX is mostly just ignored today.

So, by "doomed" I'm assuming you mean "not affected in any meaningful way".

That is patently false.

The US allows dual citizenship with any allied or non-hostile nations. US citizenship is only lost if the person expressly disavows US citizenship when or after becoming a citizen of another nation. (US and international law no longer recognize the concept of "nationless" citizenry.)

The US does not recognize dual citizenship with hostile nations. The last-acquired citizenship is deemed the person's current citizenship.

The consequence of dual citizenship is that you pay taxes, if applicable, to both countries as citizens. (Many countries have different tax rates for non-citizens.)

Edit: Follow-up to the above post -- The US treats its passports as superior to those of other nations, which is why you are urged to use your US passport when traveling in or out the US. You do not actually have to turn over your other passport. Israel, for example, requires citizens to use an Israeli passport for expedited re-entry.

None of those systems have overlapping marketshare.

WinCE is targeted at very small devices, like handhelds, GPS units, and smartphones. XP Embedded is targeted at computer-based devices used in non-computational settings for limited tasks (i.e., ATMs, arcade machines, kiosks). Vista is an upgrade to XP.

Expecting a bug-free OS from Google is a stretch. Remember Android? Google put a chunk of brainpower and marketing muscle behind that, and it's nowhere close to being bug-free...and it's already been out for a year.

Free is not, and never has been, a defense to antitrust. Indeed, free offerings are generally considered very good evidence of antitrust: the company at issue is abusing its market power in one market to increase its market power in another market in non-competitive ways (i.e., by using money earned from a separate market to undermine the target market through under-priced goods). The obvious worry is that the products will stop being free (or so cheap) once the company has achieved sufficient market control.

It does not matter what the end user can do, antitrust focuses on what the alleged monopolist is doing.

Also, choice is not a defense to antitrust under the Sherman Act. That's a common misconception among non-lawyers. Choice is only weak evidence, at best, that the an alleged monopolist's activities are not anti-competitive.

Until you factor in education level of the populace, better-maintained roads, better electrical grid, better communications grid, and the population density (which makes deliveries cheaper by reducing fuel costs and delivery times). Also...Chief Executive magazine believed that Carly Fiona was a good executive. It supported the guys at Enron. It lauded the bank executives that played a large role in causing the current global mess. Take anything that mag says with a large ton of salt.

Studios already do that with smaller artists. You just don't hear too much about them...b/c the money scales directly with perceived commercial value.

Studios chase whales because in a hit-driven industry, one successful whale will pay for his own marketing, and all costs associated with several tons of tuna (good or bad).

Think of it like the App Store: a few successes drive the system.

California gets back only 80% of the tax money it pays to the federal government. That amounts to several 10s of billions of dollars, given the population and wealth of the state.

Put another way, California would not have a deficit right now if it received its fair share of federal taxes.

Weight gain is primarily induced by over-eating. That's fact.

- Most post-menopausal women are not obese. Indeed, most do not gain much weight post-menopause. - Drugs, by and large, do not result in weight gain. A few drugs do, but only a few. - Cancer weight loss is a product of the body not being able to digest enough food for the body to use for maintenance, usually because nausea induces vomiting before the food is fully digested. - As for the sugar: the problem boils down to (again) overeating caused by the taste of sugar stimulating a desire to eat more (sugary) food. In the end, overeating is still the problem. - Finally, as for human growth hormore: the effects of premature puberty have been documented in cultures where growth hormone is not present in the cows such as in India and China (among the portions of the population wealthy enough to over-eat). Thus, it is clear that growth hormone has a negligible, or at best minor, effect on obesity.

One example. Which actually fits what I said; the free views online did very little to help his career. It was only after signing with a record company that commercial promotion pushed the music into public awareness: a studio-funded website, studio-funded placement into Entourage, and studio-funded placement into the queues of radio stations.

I am surprised that none of you brought up Marie Digby or Katy Perry. But then again, their careers mirrored that of Souljah Boy: free promotion did little to help their sales until the traditional studio machine kicked in.

Actually, "ask a lawyer" if the only correct response when you need a legal questions.

The lawyer provides legal advice. Their job is to be pessimistic and bring up all potential issues because that is what you pay them to do. A lawyer is a risk assessor. It is up to the client decide upon a course of action based on the lawyer's legal advice.

A lawyer does not provide business advice, or scientific advice. Do not blame your lawyer if you kill a perfectly valid business transaction based upon the lawyer's advice regarding the legal risks of the transaction.

A patent license protects you from suits by the licensor. It may protect you from suits by others IFF the licensor warrants that his patent is valid. Edit note that this presumes the patent is granted.

DO NOT FORGET YOU SAW IT (sorry for the all caps pg, but this is important). If you are successful, you are liable for all profits, and revenues that would have been due under the standard licensing agreement (or a reasonable % if none is established). If you aren't successful, you are still liable for a portion of revenues.

However, don't worry about the patent until you are ready to bring a patent to market b/c you don't violate the patent by prototyping or researching; you only violate a patent by putting an infringing product on the market.

IAALBYANPM, so hire one if you really want to proceed.

- Throughout most of human history, people were pretty damn active. It's only recently, within the past 5 decades, that inactivity has become the norm. - Diabetes is chronic resistance to insulin; it is not "taking insulin". Diabetics gain weight not because of insulin, but because they are resistant to insulin, so the body is unable to properly break down food; more of it ends up being converted to fat so the body can try to break it down later.

- Fat is not an energy battery. Carbohydrates are for energy. Fat is for providing nourishment when food is not readily available, and for warmth.

- Damage from starvation is not to fat, it's to muscles. Muscles are high-maintenance tissues. If there aren't enough nutrients to maintain them, they break down. It only takes a day or two of fasting for this to occur; the longer the fasting period, the greater the damage.

- Weight management is about calories consumed versus calories expended. If you want to call that thermodynamics, so be it, but it demonstrates that you don't understand what thermodynamics is, or that you don't understand how the human body works.

- My science is medical science. It's backed by prevailing medical opinion. Hell, I made sure to check WebMD and various other medical sites to make sure i wasn't pulling it out of my ass. It's very simple: eat more than your body can convert into energy or expel through various bodily functions, and that remaining mass remains in your body, as fat. Too much of that fat, and you have "obesity".

Puberty is red herring. However, medical science has shown that puberty is triggered by the quantity of food one eats -- suggesting a mass trigger for puberty, which explains why fat little boys and girls hit puberty early, but gymnasts look like little girls into their 20s.

MS would like to provide many tools and programs with Windows. The Justice Department and the European Union, however, are very much opposed to this.

That's why Europeans get to pay for Windows 7 without a browser or a media player in the year 2009.

It's actually a requirement forced upon them by businesses who like to be able to pick and choose patches that are relevant, rather than an amorphous blob.

MS didn't make the wrong processor choice to begin with; it was never stuck, so it didn't need to make that change.

Game consoles have been around as long as, if not longer than, personal computers. For the past 10 years straight, the top selling games have been...computer games, like WoW and the Sims (and Myst, before them).

Distributed source control is not the end all of programming. At best, it's a niche. Real companies use commercial source control systems.

Name one major game coming out next year that uses OpenGL. PS3 games don't count. Can't think of one, can you?

BTW, last month, Windows Vista shipped more copies than OSX sold in its entire decade-long run. So...Windows is not likely to become irrelevant soon.

As for fun...Clicking the pretty buttons to close windows may amuse folks of a simpler persuasion, but I find it more enjoyable to play actual games on my computer.

It's easier to use -- all the buttons visible at any given time are related in some way, so it's easier to find what you're looking for (or conversely, to tell if what you're looking for is not currently visible.

It's more amendable to touch-based interfaces. Bigger buttons = more area to click.