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Comment by cubefox | Hacker News Reader

Meanwhile, "cyberpunk" has been successfully trademarked in the US, even though it describes a literary genre. That's like someone trademarking "space opera", "romantasy", "film noir" etc.

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I'm pretty sure the words "Apple", "Target", "Gap", "Camel", "Jaguar", "Shell" and many others are also trademarked. Some of them the world over. It doesn't stop you from using the word except in the same genre of business

Those don't apply to instances of themselves. It's like if you breed a new apple cultivar, name it "Apple", and then register a trademark, to be the only one to name their apple variety "Apple". Or you register the trademark "Science Fiction" for your new science fiction franchise.

The colour purple is trademarked, for chocolate. That just means you can't use Cadbury purple as the color for your chocolate wrappers. You can still use it for anything else. You can't make a game called Cyberpunk but you can use it for anything else.

Totally different. Purple has nothing to do with chocolate, but Cyberpunk 2077 is a cyberpunk game. It's named after the category it is part of.

Choose Your Own Adventure is also trademarked, though that trademark (initially held by Bantam books, lapsed, and re-registered by another company) did originate the name of the genre

See also the legal drama over someone trademarking "NATO strap" for watches:

* https://mgbwatches.com/blogs/journal/why-we-re-phasing-out-t...

* https://timeandtidewatches.com/trademark-wrangle-over-nato-s...

* https://www.crownandbuckle.com/nato-strap-history

* https://www.nato.int/en/about-us/nato-history/history-by-the...

Amusingly, what military types today usually wear is a Casio G-Shock. It's hard to break. It's unbothered by water, mud, etc. It doesn't transmit anything, which most "smart watches" do. (Wearing anything that transmits in a modern combat zone is waving a sign that says "kill me now") Solar power keeps it going without attention. There's a minimal light if you push a button. Right tool for the job. Not a status symbol.

Around here large amount of military personnel is wearing Garmin. I see a lot with Fenix 7X, Instinct 2X, and Enduro 3.

But hey if they ever qualify as "smart watch" they're definitely more on the utilitarian side than on the "wrist-sized phone" one.

Time moves on.

I think Garmin Instinct is the ultimate "tactical" watch: rugged, solar-powered, e-ink screen providing 4 weeks of battery, smartphone connectivity, notifications, lets you track your pulse, sleep, movement. has compass, GPS, alarm, timer, and even maps

Instinct does not have maps, only breadcrumb. Third party like dwmaps need a phone and coverage. Hence often the move to Enduro and Fenix.

Also it's not e-ink but MIP, and that one being solar can go on basically indefinitely.

> Amusingly, what military types today usually wear is a Casio G-Shock.

Regardless of watch, most straps are attached at two points forming by single loop: one above the face and one below. If either of the attachment points break then the loop is broken and your watch falls off.

A "NATO strap" is a single look in itself and attaches to the watch in two independent places, so if either fail the loop stays intact and your watch 'just' flops around instead of falling to the ground.

There is also the "ZULU strap" which is a kind of variant that accomplishes the same goal:

* https://momentumwatch.com/blogs/momentum-blog/about-nato-and...

Netochka Nezvanova named her realtime video net jamming visual programming Max/MSP plugin "NATO.0+55+3d" just to bewilder and confuse people, and it sure did:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netochka_Nezvanova_(author)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nato.0%2B55%2B3d

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=774594

>"The epoch of the generalist has arrived -- again. Any fool can program and most do. Software engineers are emotionally inept. In today's unstable + dynamic environment they do not stand a chance." - Netochka Nezvanova

https://web.archive.org/web/20090826104645/http://www.usemod...

>One of the most famous and infamous EccentricCharacters in turn–of–the–21st Century Western artistic NetworkCulture, Netochka Nezvanova (aka N.N., antiorp, integer, Irena Sabine Czubera) remains an enigma to many. Widely believed to be an IdentityCollective?, Netochka Nezvanova is a PenName named after the title character in [an early unfinished Fyodor Dostoevsky novel] whose name means "nameless nobody" in Russian. The identity always presents itself as female, though it may not be in reality. Despite the meaning of her moniker, N.N. has coveted attention and recognition like few others on the Internet.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22352276

>Bravo! If you enjoyed that anti-Max performance art trolling, but thought it wasn't spectacularly hyperbolic and sociopathic enough, I recommend looking up some of the classic flames on the nettime mailing list by Netochka Nezvanova aka "NN" aka "=cw4t7abs", "punktprotokol", "0f0003", "maschinenkunst" (preferably spelled "m2zk!n3nkunzt"), "integer", and "antiorp"! [...]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16753758

>Nato.0+55+3d (released in 1999) was an amazing but notorious extension for Max that enabled live programming of real time video manipulation, networking and display. [...]

http://www.salon.com/2002/03/01/netochka/

The most feared woman on the Internet

Netochka Nezvanova is a software programmer, radical artist and online troublemaker. But is she for real?

The name Netochka Nezvanova is a pseudonym borrowed from the main character of Fyodor Dostoevski’s first novel; it translates loosely as “nameless nobody.” Her fans, her critics, her customers and her victims alike refer to her as a “being” or an “entity.” The rumors and speculation about her range all over the map. Is she one person with multiple identities? A female New Zealander artist, a male Icelander musician or an Eastern European collective conspiracy? The mystery only propagates her legend.

This makes me wonder if omegaverse (if you don’t know, don’t know) is trademarked given its litigious history.

> ... if you don't know, don't know...

See, this made me know. I'm gonna go shower. :(

The Olympic Games is trademarked, despite being a tradition from 2,800 years ago.

Riddle me this, was Stargate SG-1 and family a space opera.

I inclined to believe so. I miss shows like that, we need more space operas

The Stargate franchise is absolutely space opera.

Without space ships? Without space?

The "Stargate" franchise absolutely had both space and space ships.

The parent dropped the "sg1" and is talk about the entire franchise, not just 1 show or movie in it.

Even with SG1, SG1 definitely also had plenty of space and space ships, can't remember from which season exactly but lots of episodes have the team spent stuck on ships in space.

Even the original Stargate movie had a space ship but space ships were never central to the concept itself.

You could do a similar show and not have space ships due to faster than light travel being impossible. (While in Stargate it is possible).

Dr Who is occasionally on space ships, there are energy weapons, alien creatures, etc. But these are incidental to the plot, and it isn't Space Opera.

Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe aren't "occasionally on space ships". That's fundamental to their entire plot.

From Wikipedia, though: "Space opera is a subgenre of science fiction[1] and science fantasy[2] that emphasizes epic outer space adventures set in a universe in which faster-than-light travel has become common."

Stargate, even without the 2 series above, absolutely fits that definition. Very little of SG1 takes place on Earth. It's absolutely about aliens and crossing distances faster than light, and the epic adventures and social interactions that result.

Edit: Also, there's pretty heavy discussion that Dr Who is space opera.

I can't accept that Wikipedia is an authoritative source, but existence of FTL is not the sole determinant. That would make 'The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe' space opera.

Space Opera is any true descendent of Van Vogt's "Voyage of the Space Beagle" or EE Doc Smith Lensman series, Horatio Hornblower but in space, etc.

It requires the space opera quality, not the soap opera style.

Star Trek is in, Star Gate (core, not including their Universe and Atlantis) just jumps around with the Star Gate. It's Sci-Fi but not space opera. Probably a budgetary constraint of episodic TV, but nonetheless.

Stargate is military scifi. For starters, all the protagonists work for the US Air Force.

I wonder if the trademark could actually be enforced.

Who owns the trademark on that?

Looks like CD Projekt (for Cyberpunk 2077 I expect).

Lame. It should belong to R. Talsorian Games still.

It should belong to no one because it was already an established sci fi category before then. That's why it was invalidated in Europe.

Huh, I’m surprised R. Talsorian Games doesn’t also have a trademark. Wonder if they sold it to CDPR under the condition that they’re still allowed to use it for their products. Also, apparently a company in Shenzen holds the trademark in relation to lighting products, so you probably won’t see any 2077 branded lamps any time soon

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