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Since access to silencers has been unconstitutionally restricted under the NFA, and the gun control agenda refuses to be honest about them, people have a lot of misconceptions about them.
Here is a video that blows three of them away:
The post [WATCH] This Video Destroys Three Myths About Silencers appeared first on Bearing Arms.
via Bearing Arms
[WATCH] This Video Destroys Three Myths About Silencers
Zotac is joining the slowly growing market of external enclosures potentially capable of using Thunderbolt 3 to connect to a MacBook, unveiling at Computex the Thunderbolt 3 External Graphics Dock for connecting a graphics card to a host system, alongside a smaller Thunderbolt 3 External Box meant for attaching other hardware.
The Thunderbolt 3 External Graphics Dock is an enclosure meant to house graphics cards, with Zotac advising it is compatible with cards up to the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. According to Tom’s Hardware, the device supports cards up to 9 inches in length, restricting its usage to shorter graphics cards.
In order to accommodate the power needs of a graphics card, the enclosure includes its own 400-Watt internal power supply, which is also capable of charging a connected notebook. So far, Zotac has not advised of how much power it could deliver to a connected system.
Like other GPU enclosures, it connects via Thunderbolt 3 over USB Type-C to a notebook or a desktop, providing transfer speeds of up to 40Gb/s, and potentially allowing a notebook to take advantage of the graphics card for gaming, video editing, and other specialized needs. The unit also offers extra connectivity options, with four USB 3.0 ports, and a Quick Charge 3.0 port.
The second device, the Thunderbolt 3 External Box, performs a similar function to the graphics dock, but it is generally meant for other types of PCI-e hardware. Tech Power Up reports the enclosure includes a smaller 120-Watt power supply without any additional PCIe power connectors, meaning it will work with graphics cards that can function adequately that just draw power from the PCI-Express 3.0×16 slot.
Rather than for a graphics card, the Thunderbolt 3 External Box is intended for other hardware that uses the PCI-e slot, such as PCI-e solid state drives or multiple-port network cards. Just as with the graphics dock, the enclosure also has four USB 3.0 ports, with an extra 32Gb/s M.2 NVMe slot internally.
Zotac has yet to confirm how much the Thunderbolt 3 External Graphics Dock and Thunderbolt 3 External Box will cost, nor when the two enclosures will start shipping.
via AppleInsider
Zotac unveils two Thunderbolt 3 enclosures to attach external GPUs to Apple’s MacBooks
U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)- Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc. (NYSE: RGR) is proud to introduce the Ruger American Rimfire Stainless. In response to voice of the customer feedback, Ruger engineers have worked diligently to create a stainless steel configuration of this popular rifle in three calibers. Available in .22 LR, .22 WMR and .17 HMR, these stainless steel and synthetic rimfire rifles live up to Ruger’s reputation for accurate, rugged and reliable firearms.
These new Ruger American Rimfire models feature a 416 stainless steel barrel, bolt and receiver. Hand-buffed from end to end, the satin finish is highlighted by the contrasting black thread protector, bolt release, stock and one-piece Picatinny scope base. The 18” cold hammer-forged barrel free-floats in the lightweight synthetic stock and is finished with a ½”-28 threaded muzzle.
The Ruger American Rimfire rifle also features the renowned, patented Ruger Power Bedding integral bedding system, Ruger Marksman Adjustable trigger and ultra-reliable rotary magazine. The modular stock system helps to adjust the rifle fit to the shooter by allowing for different comb heights and lengths of pull. These new models ship with a high comb, standard length of pull module installed, providing ideal cheek weld for optics.
For more information about the Ruger American Rimfire or to learn more about the extensive line of award-winning Ruger firearms, visit Ruger.com or Facebook.com/Ruger. To find accessories for Ruger firearms, visit ShopRuger.com or your local independent retailer of Ruger firearms.
Ruger American Rimfire Stainless Specs
About Sturm, Ruger & Co., Inc.
Sturm, Ruger & Co., Inc. is one of the nation’s leading manufacturers of rugged, reliable firearms for the commercial sporting market. As a full-line manufacturer of American-made firearms, Ruger offers consumers over 400 variations of more than 30 product lines. For more than 60 years, Ruger has been a model of corporate and community responsibility. Our motto, “Arms Makers for Responsible Citizens,” echoes the importance of these principles as we work hard to deliver quality and innovative firearms
This post Introducing the Ruger American Rimfire Stainless appeared first on AmmoLand.com Shooting Sports News .
via AmmoLand.com Shooting Sports News
Introducing the Ruger American Rimfire Stainless
Star Wars is one of those franchises that has been everywhere and done everything. There probably isn’t a “thing” you can imagine that Star Wars hasn’t been at some point: porn parody, pet toys, television show, garden tools, virtual reality, you name it and Star Wars has probably done it.
And if it’s been done, it’s probably in this absolutely insane video put together by the Cinefamily in Los Angeles.
For the 40th anniversary of Star Wars, Cinefamily held a special screening of this 95-minute film comprised totally of real footage of Star Wars in culture throughout its existence. Some of it is normal. Most of it is not. From classic news stories and commercials to weird parodies and behind the scenes clips, there’s so much here, it’s unbelievable. Check it out.
via Gizmodo
Watch 95 Weird, Wondrous Minutes of Star Wars Found Footage Through the Decades
I grew up mowing a giant, mangy lawn. My family lived on an acre of hilltop land, which we kept shaggily mowed, too spiky to walk on in our bare feet. On one side was a cornfield. On the other side was our neighbor, Mr. Howland, the Ned Flanders of lawn care. He seeded his lawn with fine golf-course-grade grass, mowed and sprayed it weekly, and even rolled it flat like an off-season Zamboni driver.
Mr. Howland’s lawn infuriated me. I stewed about it every time I gingerly steered our riding mower around the nest of killdeer in the unkempt grass, and as I mowed along the property line, grimacing at the clear Goofus-and-Gallant contrast. After I mowed, I would tromp across our acre of brown spiky stubble and take off my shoes on Mr. Howland’s lawn.
Well, well, well: It turns out that ours was the morally correct lawn. It would have been more correct if we’d mowed even less and let the grass grow to its natural height, or ceded some of the backyard to the wild field of pheasant grass. We didn’t need to be ashamed of dandelions, or brown patches, or ground-nesting birds.
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As The Nib’s Ted Steinberg and Shannon Wright explain in their comic “Hate Mowing Your Lawn? Good! Don’t Do It,” the regularly mowed lawn is a recent invention, popularized in the U.S. only after World War II. Its rapid expansion, driven by lawn-care companies and reliant on invasive species of grass, sucks up nearly 20 trillion gallons of water a year, 50 to 75% of home water use each summer. While lawns, like any plant life, suck up greenhouse gases, the energy spent on their care wipes out any gains. Cutting back on lawn care is one of the easiest ways you can reduce your climate-change impact. You’ll burn less fossil fuel, and the taller grass will retain more moisture.
So I win the long game, Mr. Howland. And I know you were mowing over our property line.
By Jason Rantanen
Impression Products, Inc. v. Lexmark International, Inc. (2017) – Download opinion
In a straightforward and almost unanimous opinion authored by Chief Justice Roberts, the Supreme Court reversed the Federal Circuit on both domestic (8-0) and international exhaustion (7-1).
The Supreme Court’s opinion is summed up by a single sentence early on. “We conclude that a patentee’s decision to sell a product exhausts all of its patent rights in that item, regardless of any restrictions the patentee purports to impose or the location of the sale.” Slip Op. at 1. The underlying rationale is offered a bit later: “Patent exhaustion reflects the principle that, when an item passes into commerce, it should not be shaded by a legal cloud on title as it moves through the marketplace.” Slip Op. at 11. With these two pronouncements, the Supreme Court has in one swoop both simplified patent law and added new complexities, challenges and opportunities to the innovation ecosystem.
Impression v. Lexmark involved, at its core, the question of whether restrictions placed on a patented product could be enforced through an infringement suit–often a more viable legal mechanism for the patent owner than an an action for breach of contract.
Under Federal Circuit precedent, the answer for over two decades was yes. The theory relied upon by the Federal Circuit in decisions such as Malkinkrodt, and reaffirmed by the en banc court in Lexmark v. Impression, was that the patent owner could decide to give away only some of its patent rights when it sold or authorized the sale of a patented product. As a result, the patent owner could sue a party who violated those restrictions for patent infringement because, the theory went, the purchaser did not possess the relevant set of patent permissions–the “sticks” in the “bundle of rights” that the patent owner possessed. Thus, for example, a patent owner could place a single-use only restriction on an ink cartridge or medical device and sue for infringement if the device were reused. In short, the exhaustion rule was effectively default rule of patent law that the parties could contract around.
The Supreme Court rejected this approach, basing its conclusion on common law principles of ownership as reflected in its 1853 decision in Bloomer v. McQuewan. “For over 160 years, the doctrine of patent exhaustion has imposed a limit on [patentees’ right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling their invention].” Slip Op. at 5-6. “When a patentee chooses to sell an item, that product ‘is no longer within the limits of the monopoly’ and instead becomes the ‘private, individual property’ of the purchaser, with the rights and benefits that come along with ownership.” Id., quoting Bloomer. While a patent owner may impose contractual restrictions, those restrictions are a matter of contract law, not patent law. “A patentee is free to set the price and negotiate contracts with purchasers, but may not, ‘by virtue of his patent, control the use or disposition’ of the product after ownership passes to the purchaser. United States v. Univis Lens Co., 316 U. S. 241, 250 (1942) (emphasis added).” Once a patent owner sells a patented product, it has obtained the patent reward and may no longer rely on patent law. Referencing its opinion in Kirsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 568 U.S. 519, 538 (2013), the Court observed that exhaustion has “an impeccable historic pedigree,” a backdrop against which Congress has repeatedly revised and fine-tuned the patent law.
The Federal Circuit’s error was that it started from the wrong place: interpreting the infringement statute. But “the exhaustion doctrine is not a presumption about the authority that comes along with a sale; it is instead a limit on ‘the scope of the patentee’s rights.’” Slip Op. at 10, quoting United States v. General Elec. Co., 272 U. S. 476, 489 (1926) (emphasis added). The sale transfers the foundational rights to use, sell or import the product sold; it simultaneously exhausts the patent rights:
The right to use, sell, or import an item exists independently of the Patent Act. What a patent adds—and grants exclusively to the patentee—is a limited right to prevent others from engaging in those practices. See Crown Die & Tool Co. v. Nye Tool & Machine Works, 261 U. S. 24, 35 (1923). Exhaustion extinguishes that exclusionary power. See Bloomer, 14 How., at 549 (the purchaser “exercises no rights created by the act of Congress, nor does he derive title to [the item]by virtue of the . . . exclusive privilege granted to the patentee”). As a result, the sale transfers the right to use, sell, or import because those are the rights that come along with ownership, and the buyer is free and clear of an infringement lawsuit because there is no exclusionary right left to enforce.”
Exhaustion applies regardless of whether the patent owner sells the product or a licensee–even a licensee subject to restrictions by the patent owner. “A patentee’s authority to limit licensees does not, as the Federal Circuit thought, mean that patentees can use licenses to impose post-sale restrictions on purchasers that are enforceable through the patent laws. So long as a licensee complies with the license when selling an item, the patentee has, in effect, authorized the sale.” Slip Op. at 11-12.
“In sum, patent exhaustion is uniform and automatic. Once a patentee decides to sell—whether on its own or through a licensee—that sale exhausts its patent rights,regardless of any post-sale restrictions the patentee purports to impose, either directly or through a license.”
The Court also held that foreign sales exhausted U.S. patent rights–in other words, a system of global exhaustion. This conclusion, too, was bolstered by a common law policy against restraints on the alienation of chattels.
Justice Ginsburg concurred with the Court’s holding on domestic exhaustion but dissented with respect to international exhaustion. She would hold that “A foreign sale…does not exhaust a U.S. inventor’s U.S. patent rights.”
What’s left? Lexmark strikes a powerful blow against post-sale restrictions by negating the threat of infringement to enforce those restrictions. But it hardly eliminates such restrictions–to the contrary, the Court is clear that such restrictions may still be enforced under contract law. In addition, the Court’s opinion revolves around sales of products. Left unanswered is the role that patents will continue to play in non-complete transfers–licenses of a good or service rather than a sale.
Previous Patently-O Commentary:
via Patent Law Blog (Patently-O)
Impression v. Lexmark: Patent Rights Exhausted by Sale, Domestic or Abroad
To celebrate 40 years of Star Wars, Cinefamily TV created this epic video mixtape loaded with insane and obscure footage, from interviews, to parodies, to fan tributes, and much more. If you’re not prepared to spend 95 minutes right now, the trailer should convince you.
Robots remain a rare sight outside of labs in most of the world, but in Silicon Valley, they have already started taking on service jobs. In this episode of Judah Vs. The Machines, Judah visits the Crowne Plaza hotel in San Jose to check out Relay, a hotel service robot that can autonomously bring guests food and other necessities.
After poking Relay’s creator, Steve Cousins about equal pay for robots, Judah decides to compete head-to-head to see whether a machine can actually best a human at hospitality. The hotel arranges a competitive delivery challenge to see if Relay can secure higher service ratings from guests. And while robots are a long way from running hotels by themselves, Relay has the advantage of being fast, quiet and unconcerned with tips.
Outside of hospitality, Cousins’ company, Savioke, also puts its robots to use in research labs and industrial facilities where specialty items are needed on a moments notice. Relay and all of its brethren are on track to take up service jobs at new hotels in the near future, though, for now, they only operate well in environments that tend not to change much — this is one place where humans still hold an ace card.
via TechCrunch
Judah Vs. The Machines: In which a robot services a hotel room
Thinking of getting into hand tools? Here Shannon Rogers, founder of The Hand Tool School, shows you the beginning hand tool kit:
Linn from Darbin Orvar tackles another large-scale project, this time constructing a gazebo on her father-in-law’s property, using just a jigsaw and a hammer:
Ben Uyeda does something a bit different this week, creating a "Swedish torch"-style camping stove:
Not a build video, but this tour of Ben Uyeda’s bathroom is cool because we get to see how many of the projects he’s built have actually become integrated into his life:
In this sponsored post, John Heisz builds outdoor furniture using DeWalts’s Flexvolt line of tools:
Ben Brandt shows off a killer app for people who have shops and own 3D printers: Being able to make virtually any kind of dust port you need. With your own 3D printer, compatibility is no longer an issue.
via Core77
A Bare Bones Kit for Getting Started with Hand Tools, Building a Swedish Torch Camp Stove, Outdoor Furniture & More
Guest Post by Pamela Samuelson, Berkeley Law School. Professor Samuelson’s newest article Functionality and Expression in Computer Programs: Refining the Tests for Software Copyright Infringement, is forthcoming in the Berkeley Technology Law Journal.
“Neither the Copyright Statute nor any other says that because a thing is patentable it may not be copyrighted. We should not so hold.” So said the Supreme Court in Mazer v. Stein, 347 U.S. 201, 217 (1954).
In Oracle Am. Inc. v. Google Inc., 750 F.3d 1339 (Fed. Cir. 2014), the Federal Circuit invoked this language in rejecting Google’s “policy” argument that application program interface (API) designs were more appropriately patent, not copyright, subject matter. Id. at 1380-81. The Oracle decision seemingly accepted as unobjectionable the possibility of overlapping utility patent and copyright protections in program interfaces, and perhaps even of copyright as a gap filler for interface designs for which patents had not been obtained.
Because the contours of copyright and patent protections for software innovations remain unclear notwithstanding more than 50 years of experience trying to apply these intellectual property (IP) regimes to these utilitarian writings and virtual machines, the question of whether or to what extent copyright and patent overlap or are mutually exclusive continues to bedevil the field. The Federal Circuit’s Oracle decision is unlikely to be the last word on this subject.
Recently, I rediscovered the 1991 study that the Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) and the Copyright Office wrote about the software IP overlap or exclusivity issue. The Patent-Copyright Laws Overlap Study (May 1991) was prepared at the behest of the House Subcommittee on Intellectual Property and the Administration of Justice. The Study is more than 90 pages in length and has more than 50 pages of appendices.
[1991 Patent-Copyright Overlap Study]
Among the most significant of the Study’s software findings is that there is “no overlap in subject matter: copyright protects the authorship in a set of statements that bring about a certain result in the operation of a computer, and patents cover novel and nonobvious computer processes.” Letter from Ralph Oman and Harry F. Manbeck to the Hon. William J. Hughes, July 17, 1991 (transmitting the Study to the then Chair of the House Subcommittee).
Another finding is that “[p]atent protection is not available for computer programs per se,” which supports the Study’s conclusion that copyright and utility patent for programs are not “coextensive.” Study at iii (emphasis in the original). The Study identifies the doctrinal rationale for this exclusivity: program innovations “consist of mental steps or printed matter.” Id. at vii. Copyright and patent could, however, protect “totally different aspects” of program innovations. Id. at 2. The Study cited to the Supreme Court’s decision in Baker v. Selden, 101 U.S. 99 (1879) as the “bedrock opinion for the view that patent and copyright are mutually exclusive.” Id. at 19.
As for user interface designs, the Study reports that “[t]he mere display on a screen of commands, menus, questions and answers, forms, or icons is not generally considered patentable subject matter for utility patents” because “it is generally considered to be merely printed matter.” Id. at 45-46. Yet processes to produce user interface displays might be eligible for utility patenting. Id. at 47. (The Study discusses the possibility of design patent protection for icons. Id. at 46-47.)
Insofar as user interface screen displays have original expressive elements (e.g., videogame graphics), they would be eligible for copyright protection. Id. at 60-67. However, many aspects of user interface designs are akin to blank forms and lack originality. Id. at 68-69. Some aspects of user interfaces, such as lists of commands, are uncopyrightable under the doctrines of merger and scenes a faire and the words and short phrases exclusion. Id. at 70-71.
The Study recognized that some commentators had raised concerns about overbroad copyright protection for programs; yet, others, it noted, think that expansive protection is needed. Id. at 86-87. The Study concluded that this debate notwithstanding, it would be “premature” to conclude that the risks of overbroad protections were significant as there is “no overlap in subject matter” between copyright and patent. Id. at 88-90. The Study urged Congress to wait and see how the law evolved. Id. at 89.
“At the bottom of this debate,” said the Study, “it appears is the question of protection of functionality….” Id. at 87. It would be contrary to the statutory exclusions set forth in 17 U.S.C. § 102(b) for copyright to protect program functionality. (“In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated or embodied in such work.”) Study at 87. According to the Study, the protection of functionality “is assigned to patents where a much more rigorous test must be undergone and the barriers to entry in terms of time, cost, and complexity, are higher.” Id. at 88.
It is unfortunate that the Federal Circuit did not have access to this Study when deciding the copyrightability issue in the Oracle case, as its conclusions might have given the court pause about invoking the Mazer overlap-endorsing dicta in response to Google’s mutual exclusivity argument.
In a forthcoming article, Functionality and Expression in Computer Programs: Refining the Tests for Software Copyright Infringement, I challenge the Federal Circuit’s conclusion that copyright and utility patent can provide overlapping IP protections for software innovations. The article notes that the Mazer dicta was made in the context of a real, if partial, overlap in copyright and design patent subject matters. Stein’s statuette qualified as a work of art under U.S. copyright law. However, used as the base of a lamp, the design was also eligible for design patent protection as an ornamental design of an article of manufacture.
The Court in Mazer was unequivocal about copyright and utility patents having separate domains. It cited approvingly to two of Baker’s progeny that had held “that the Mechanical Patent Law and Copyright Laws are mutually exclusive,” Mazer, 201 U.S at 215, n.33 (emphasis added). See Taylor Instrument Co. v. Fawley-Brost Co., 139 F.2d 98 (7th Cir. 1943) (no copyright in temperature recording charts because they were integral parts of previously patented machines) and Brown Instrument Co. v. Warner, 161 F.2d 910 (D.C. Cir. 1947) (accord). Overlaps in design patent and copyright subject matters had, by contrast, long been accepted. Mazer, 201 U.S. at 215, n.33.
The exact contours of utility patent and copyright protections for software innovations may not shimmer with clarity, but the 1991 Study adheres to the Supreme Court’s long-standing pronouncements in Baker and Mazer that copyright and utility patent are and should be mutually exclusive. Now if only the Federal Circuit can be made to understand this.
via Patent Law Blog (Patently-O)
Are Copyright and Patent Overlapping or Mutually Exclusive in Protecting Software Innovations?