Slashdot Mirror

The story is based on a bogus Wikipedia entry that doesn't even refer to this as a patent. It's indeed a trademark. I traced it back to its roots: http://bit.ly/bVcJo8

If you put a + at the end of a bit.ly url you can see the statistics and where it links to like so..

http://bit.ly/9KFubG+

In this case it's going to: http://blog.amahi.org/2010/08/11/amahi-for-the-marvell-plug-computer-released-get-yours-free/

How did the pea roots deal with the patient's immune system?

They didn't have to. The immune system is largely inactive in and oblivious to the airspace of the lung. It would only be when the roots breached the walls and entered the blood that the immune system would get wise.

What would have happened if the situation had continued un-treated?

If it had continued to grow and tore a hole in the lung he could have got infection-like symptoms (fevers and aches as the body ramped up production of leukocytes).

If it had died it would become food for bacteria in the air, and it would have decayed in situ. That would have made a gooey mess.

It gave him what TFA called emphysema, or maybe they meant he really has a prior diagnosis for emphysema so he thought this was more of that and didn't do anything with it until it became acute.

He probably would also have contracted (or had and they weren't reporting) a bad case of pneumonia. The more stuff in your lungs that isn't lung, the easier that is.

BTW, BT, DT, and there's not much better in life than to get a result of "it's not cancer it's something weird" when your lungs hurt.

bet the guy has a career awaiting him in PR for a pea-growing company.

Or a lawsuit waiting for him from the trademark-trolling division of Archer-Daniels Midland, for using their logo in his x-rays without paying a royalty.

Lung....

Lunnnnnnggggg....

Lovely, woody word....lunnnnnggg...

Apple has been building a WiFi-based location database using data collected by the iPhone and other mobile devices since January 2008, and finally replaced Skyhook as his provider last April.

The real news is that Apple is building a universal mashup of location-based services related to traveling. This will include any service, preference, or purchase, you can make while traveling. The patent claim mentions a comprehensive list, including arrival notification, restaurant reservations, travel itinerary, airport maps, control seat services (audio, video, temperature, lights, entertainment), preferences (seating, flying times, meals, airlines, airports), access to 3rd party services, and more.

In this manner, through an integrated application, a travel service provider can maintain a constant connection between the travel service provider and the user. This can result in changing a user's travel experience from a fragmented and disjointed process to one that is instead seamless and fluid.

At one point they use the WhereTo application as a sample UI that could access the service. WhereTo is a wheel where you click to jump to Google Places. This does not mean they intent to patent the UI, but the technology behind it. I mean, read the damn thing:

Accordingly, through the integrated application, airport services can be searched for, browsed, viewed, and otherwise listed or presented to the user. For example, an interface such as interface 602 [602 refers to the Where To? drawing] can be provided on a user’s electronic device.

The UI is not the subject of the patent claim, but an example of how to use it.

WhereTo developers said This paragraph sounds like a claim that describes Where To?’s functionality pretty exactly. Yes, yours and the hundred more apps that also use the same service, but you didn't invent Google Places. Hell, if I design a cube interface tomorrow, I still didn't invent Google Places.

In the words of Brian Ford:

The real problem, as I see it, is that no one thought to approach FutureTap, and let them know that they’d be doing so. I deal with patent applications a lot at work because they’re often used as evidence in trials that I work on, and there’s no way around the fact that they’re hard to decipher. Bloggers are bound to read a lot into this, and a lot of the speculation is going to be based on a lack of information.

Apple has been building a WiFi-based location database using data collected by the iPhone and other mobile devices since January 2008, and finally replaced Skyhook as his provider last April.

The real news is that Apple is building a universal mashup of location-based services related to traveling. This will include any service, preference, or purchase, you can make while traveling. The patent claim mentions a comprehensive list, including arrival notification, restaurant reservations, travel itinerary, airport maps, control seat services (audio, video, temperature, lights, entertainment), preferences (seating, flying times, meals, airlines, airports), access to 3rd party services, and more.

In this manner, through an integrated application, a travel service provider can maintain a constant connection between the travel service provider and the user. This can result in changing a user's travel experience from a fragmented and disjointed process to one that is instead seamless and fluid.

At one point they use the WhereTo application as a sample UI that could access the service. WhereTo is a wheel where you click to jump to Google Places. This does not mean they intent to patent the UI, but the technology behind it. I mean, read the damn thing:

Accordingly, through the integrated application, airport services can be searched for, browsed, viewed, and otherwise listed or presented to the user. For example, an interface such as interface 602 [602 refers to the Where To? drawing] can be provided on a user’s electronic device.

The UI is not the subject of the patent claim, but an example of how to use it.

WhereTo developers said This paragraph sounds like a claim that describes Where To?’s functionality pretty exactly. Yes, yours and the hundred more apps that also use the same service, but you didn't invent Google Places. Hell, if I design a cube interface tomorrow, I still didn't invent Google Places.

In the words of Brian Ford:

The real problem, as I see it, is that no one thought to approach FutureTap, and let them know that they’d be doing so. I deal with patent applications a lot at work because they’re often used as evidence in trials that I work on, and there’s no way around the fact that they’re hard to decipher. Bloggers are bound to read a lot into this, and a lot of the speculation is going to be based on a lack of information.

NEVER call the police: http://bit.ly/dpr8Y2

"dominated"?

http://www.state.gov/

Handily, the top item on their blogroll is about the DoS's priorities and accomplishments:

http://bit.ly/d5U9oa

Feel free to disbelieve it.

And you know what? Even non-heating, non-ionizing radiation causes observable biological effects, like induction of heat shock proteins: http://bit.ly/duq1ZZ

The problem is that people latch on to the word "radiation,"

Some people do. Other people have legitimate concerns. Go read the literature. Here's a pointer to get you started: http://bit.ly/bTSVvj

It conveys the idea that radio emissions are somehow harmful, which they aren't.

That's unknown. Radio emissions at cell phone bands do have biological effects, and it is currently unknown whether those are harmful.

and DON'T know anything about the actual studies which have shown no even correlation between cell phones and disease

Those studies are indeed inconclusive. However, there is significant evidence for changes in gene expression patterns, cellular stress, and DNA damage: http://bit.ly/bTSVvj Those results don't show that these radio emissions cause disease, but they make it quite plausible.

but I look at this and have to ask 'what science is behind this?'

Nobody knows either way whether cell phone radiation is harmful to humans. But it has been shown experimentally that it has biological effects: http://bit.ly/bTSVvj That makes it plausible that it might have harmful effects in humans.

So, until there is clear and convincing evidence that cell phone radiation is harmless, why not give people a choice?

I can see your upset, but I have to ask...

It's right there in their constitutions!

http://bit.ly/3vwrv6
http://bit.ly/9SBGol
http://bit.ly/amsqDk
http://bit.ly/aY78x

Although to be fair, Arkansas recently repealed their ban on "idiots" voting

http://bit.ly/cYrrmI

It's right there in their constitutions!

http://bit.ly/3vwrv6
http://bit.ly/9SBGol
http://bit.ly/amsqDk
http://bit.ly/aY78x

Although to be fair, Arkansas recently repealed their ban on "idiots" voting

http://bit.ly/cYrrmI

It's right there in their constitutions!

http://bit.ly/3vwrv6
http://bit.ly/9SBGol
http://bit.ly/amsqDk
http://bit.ly/aY78x

Although to be fair, Arkansas recently repealed their ban on "idiots" voting

http://bit.ly/cYrrmI

It's right there in their constitutions!

http://bit.ly/3vwrv6
http://bit.ly/9SBGol
http://bit.ly/amsqDk
http://bit.ly/aY78x

Although to be fair, Arkansas recently repealed their ban on "idiots" voting

http://bit.ly/cYrrmI

It's right there in their constitutions!

http://bit.ly/3vwrv6
http://bit.ly/9SBGol
http://bit.ly/amsqDk
http://bit.ly/aY78x

Although to be fair, Arkansas recently repealed their ban on "idiots" voting

http://bit.ly/cYrrmI

As for Prince of Persia, never played it.

It's available for download on iTunes for $.99 if you have an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. It's a cheap & fun distraction. Here's a link. Note: Link launches iTunes.

Taken from wikileaks' Twitter at http://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/17498238199 is this:

"Wired's war on WikiLeaks continues. See comment by 'mpineiro' http://bit.ly/aZm4US"

Posted by: mpineiro | 07/1/10 | 9:21 am |

ADDITIONAL INFO REQUIRED TO FULLY UNDERSTAND THIS ARTICLE:
Below are some additional bits of information that may change your understanding of why this heavily-editorialized piece is appearing in Wired at this time.

1. The editor of the Threat Level blog at Wired, Kevin Poulsen, has recently been questioned by journalists and privacy activists for his strange role in the recent Wikileaks / Bradley Manning story. A number of questions have been asked of Poulsen in order to clear up any suspicions of impropriety or violation of journalistic ethics by Poulsen but he hasn’t been able to answer those questions, resulting in stronger suspicions and newly-revealed information that strengthens the suspicions further still. This entire matter could be cleared up and resolved except for Poulsen’s on-going non-cooperation.

2. Kevin Poulsen apparently did not like even being *asked* about conflicts of interest (something that all journalists are questioned on all the time as part of the job). To make matters worse, Poulsen is resorting to retaliation, as if this was a BBS war between pre-teens and not an important discussion about law enforcement abuses in the US, abuses committed by occupation soldier abuses in Iraq, a co-ordinated campaign to discredit Wikileaks and the unethical, allegedly illegal manner in which PFC Bradley Manning was interrogated by someone who Poulsen has known and worked with for years and years.

If you look at Poulsen’s Twitter feed (@kpoulsen), it is sparsely updated. It appears that Poulsen only posts on Twitter when he is announcing a new Threat Level blog post or he is openly attacking Wikileaks. It seems safe to say that the “editorial line” over in Poulsen’s corner of Wired is sharply opposed to Wikileaks.

Any journalist should be prepared to respond, without getting emotional or defensive, if legitimate questions about conflict-of-interest or ethics are asked of them. That’s part of the job.

3. In the If-It-Wasn’t-So-Serious-It’d-Be-Funny Department, both Poulsen and known police informant Adrian Lamo are WELL AWARE of the SERIOUS implications of Poulsen being involved with law enforcement in any way. As a result, they both say the exact same thing when anyone asks about the nature of the relationship: “It’s a reporter-source relationship,” they’ll both recite. Lamo, who has much less to lose than Poulsen and possibly has reason to feel resentful that he has to take all the heat for something that benefited both of them, recites that line with a hint of sarcasm. But, maybe I’m reading something in the tone that isn’t actually there. Could be.

4. Poulsen was asked (you might even say “challenged”) by Salon columnist Glenn Greenwald to release the unedited, un-redacted portions of the chat transcripts between Poulsen’s long-time source/friend (Lamo) and PFC Bradley Manning also, releasing the logs would help clear up any perceived impropriety by Poulsen or Wired.

Poulsen refused to do so then and continues to refuse the many requests by Greenwald and others to release the logs. Even worse, the reason Poulsen gave about why he wouldn’t release them was shown to be untrue, as documented by Greenwald. Poulsen has never said ANYTHING MORE AT ALL about THAT maybe under the advice of his attorney?

The logs that Poulsen won’t release would have enormous value in the public domain — they would help individuals & government/law enforcement watchdog groups deal with the increasing erosion of our civil liberties. They also show an unfortunately side effect of California’s

Taken from wikileaks' Twitter at http://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/17498238199 is this:

"Wired's war on WikiLeaks continues. See comment by 'mpineiro' http://bit.ly/aZm4US"

Not so quick to judge Wired's coverage at face value...

Looks like the images aren't relative. Here are links for those too:

http://bit.ly/9vmhjk
http://bit.ly/97NJeM
http://bit.ly/9WrHZ0
http://bit.ly/9WrHZ0
http://bit.ly/bqjikv

Looks like the images aren't relative. Here are links for those too:

http://bit.ly/9vmhjk
http://bit.ly/97NJeM
http://bit.ly/9WrHZ0
http://bit.ly/9WrHZ0
http://bit.ly/bqjikv

Looks like the images aren't relative. Here are links for those too:

http://bit.ly/9vmhjk
http://bit.ly/97NJeM
http://bit.ly/9WrHZ0
http://bit.ly/9WrHZ0
http://bit.ly/bqjikv

Looks like the images aren't relative. Here are links for those too:

http://bit.ly/9vmhjk
http://bit.ly/97NJeM
http://bit.ly/9WrHZ0
http://bit.ly/9WrHZ0
http://bit.ly/bqjikv

Looks like the images aren't relative. Here are links for those too:

http://bit.ly/9vmhjk
http://bit.ly/97NJeM
http://bit.ly/9WrHZ0
http://bit.ly/9WrHZ0
http://bit.ly/bqjikv

Short coral cache link: http://bit.ly/cQHH2y

OCR consists of many steps; recognizing the individual characters is only one of them. You also need to separate text from images, group characters into lines and columns, separate floats, captions, and body text, etc. Many of those are tough problems even if someone hands you a PDF with all the characters. And if any one of them is wrong, the entire output may be wrong.

Recognizing individual characters is also harder than you may think because there is such a wide variety of fonts in use and because there are so many odd things that can happen. Even in perfectly rendered images (no dirt etc.), two characters may be bit-identical but mean something different in different fonts. Ligatures, underlines, unknown characters, etc. also make the problem quite a bit harder.

And even though 1% error would be low for just about any other machine learning or pattern recognition problem, that's a high OCR error and looks quite bad; people are much more sensitive to OCR errors than pattern recognition errors in other contexts. Furthermore, there are a lot of characters to be classified and you only get very little CPU time per character.

We've been developing an OCR system (ocropus.org) for a while now (see http://bit.ly/9Xputj for status info). It's fairly easy to get excellent performance on a closed dataset with a well-defined character set. Getting acceptable performance on arbitrary documents and dealing with all the special cases (ligatures, foreign characters, color images, magazine layouts, unknown languages, Unicode issues, etc.) is tons of work.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, although Google has sponsored OCRopus (thanks!), OCRopus is a separate project from Google's internal OCR efforts.

Yes, there's really no info that can be shrunk into 140 chars. You could learn calculus that way but what's the point? http://bit.ly/9tE4fa

Probably a classic for some people, but I just discovered this wonderful gem last week. Title says it all:

http://tweetingtoohard.com/

It gives you all these kind of tweets that we, "tweeter indiferents", like sooo much :)

Greetings

--
Learn more about Dropbox, and Get 250 extra MB sync space, going here: http://bit.ly/cMU9Mt

Besides, a lot of tweets contain a link.

As far as I'm concerned, every url-shortened link goes directly to goatse.cx

http://bit.ly/10ZXS
There's a 50/50 chance I just linked to lemonparty.org
Feel free to roll the dice and find out.

Wrong use case. It's important to know about your friends' kids' bowel habits in real time. That's why thoughtful parents use Twitter. Blogs should be reserved for more analytical communications.

You'll never see my work on the preprint server (wrong email address). You can buy it on a t-shirt, watch it on YouTube, or look at non-peer reviewed papers.

Doug
TheStandUpPhysicist

http://bit.ly/GEMtshirt the t-shirt
http://bit.ly/GEMpdf Close as I can do to a paper
http://bit.ly/GEMnb Transformed paper into a Mathematica notebook to check the math
http://bit.ly/GEMnbpdf The notebook as a pdf file
Lots of stuff on YouTube

You'll never see my work on the preprint server (wrong email address). You can buy it on a t-shirt, watch it on YouTube, or look at non-peer reviewed papers.

Doug
TheStandUpPhysicist

http://bit.ly/GEMtshirt the t-shirt
http://bit.ly/GEMpdf Close as I can do to a paper
http://bit.ly/GEMnb Transformed paper into a Mathematica notebook to check the math
http://bit.ly/GEMnbpdf The notebook as a pdf file
Lots of stuff on YouTube

You'll never see my work on the preprint server (wrong email address). You can buy it on a t-shirt, watch it on YouTube, or look at non-peer reviewed papers.

Doug
TheStandUpPhysicist

http://bit.ly/GEMtshirt the t-shirt
http://bit.ly/GEMpdf Close as I can do to a paper
http://bit.ly/GEMnb Transformed paper into a Mathematica notebook to check the math
http://bit.ly/GEMnbpdf The notebook as a pdf file
Lots of stuff on YouTube

You'll never see my work on the preprint server (wrong email address). You can buy it on a t-shirt, watch it on YouTube, or look at non-peer reviewed papers.

Doug
TheStandUpPhysicist

http://bit.ly/GEMtshirt the t-shirt
http://bit.ly/GEMpdf Close as I can do to a paper
http://bit.ly/GEMnb Transformed paper into a Mathematica notebook to check the math
http://bit.ly/GEMnbpdf The notebook as a pdf file
Lots of stuff on YouTube

Put a sock in it.

Twitter has already put a dozen socks in it.

Unlike the term used for the people who use Twitter: "Twats".

As opposed to the people that Twitter uses, which are called sockpuppets.

Making loads of money, check this site out. Already received 2 payouts.

http://bit.ly/cPR0vr

Making loads of money, check this site out. Already received 2 payouts.

http://bit.ly/cPR0vr

The Slashdot article's Venture Capitalists seem to forget that software patents protect small players more than big plays due to: "... entrepreneurs and small, innovative firms rely more heavily upon the patent system than larger enterprises. Larger companies are said to possess alternative means for achieving a proprietary or property-like interest in a particular technology. For example, trade secrecy, ready access to markets, trademark rights, speed of development, and consumer goodwill may to some degree act as substitutes to the patent system. However, individual inventors and small firms often do not have these mechanisms at their disposal” and “small patenting firms produce 13-14 times more patents per employee as large patenting firms” http://bit.ly/aSnz61

http://bit.ly/a5OAnH

(usenet, rec.sport.soccer).

Buh. After reading about terrabit cube storage in 1994 http://bit.ly/cf4ufr [new scientist], I didn't upgrade my 3.5" floppies for years ... now I'm old, cynical about every article like this and my removable storage devices don't go past 32GB.

So, I'm thinking if we make enough noise, perhaps she'll get her job back. I created a Facebook group with that goal in mind... Perhaps if we set a precedent, companies will think twice about canning someone because of a private joke. http://bit.ly/9Rhcjy

> -Egiptian Iconology: No answer, but it's spelled "Egyptian"

If only my mother tongue was English...

On the other hand, "I know WHY explicitly Richard became immortal". What I need is the proper "Why". Some kind of hint, purpose, something...

The same thing with the polar bears, I know perfectly "where they come from", but "why"? Which kind of experiments were these? How about the infinite supplies? Does the Dharma initiative exist in the real world (of the Lost universe, of course)?

Why in some episode in the 3rd (or so) season there's some Dharma seal buried onto an archaeological site? (That means probably thousands of years in the past)... I'm not sure if Dharma initiative has to do with these long-in-the-past-time-spans... All vague...

How about the "whispers", or the "pregnancy problems" of island mothers...

And the tyrannic Ben who turned into such a (specially) lame "puppet"? I don't get it either... I want to get something! "I want to believe".

What I saw depicted, feels like kind of vague to me (and of course, to MANY others)... I "don't feel fulfilled", just this.
Many other TV series are more "let's-fit-the-pieces-of-the-puzzle" oriented (even some of them remain loose). I don't feel the "pilot episode creation team talent" has been used with the same strength they put when creating the 1st season. It's EASY to create the ending we saw. It feels like the "we're out of fuel and ideas" approach. I don't want to see that I could have been the one writing this easy ending.

I feel happy for the few people that liked it, anyway.

Greetings

--
Get 250 extra MB Dropbox space using this invitation http://bit.ly/agkF3r

MANY topics have remained unsolved. And beyond "happy endings" and such, THIS is what people wants, minimal justifications. Among other:

-Pregnant women
-Richard immortality
-Dharma initiative
-Polar Bears (WTF?)
-Egiptian Iconology
-That lighthouse
-Libbie and the mental institution staff
-ESP capable people (Hugo, Miles... Why?)
-Who are the ones/the others/the other others/the other others ruled by a japanese guy (COSMIC WTF)
-Original people (Jacob's mother people)/Jacob's stepmother
-MANY more things that don't come to my mind...

More than furious, 6th season has been a BIG Deux ex Machina.
Lost peak was the impasse between 3rd and 4th season, where the first flash forward appears. Since then, it's been a slow and steady freefall...

Greetings

--
Get 250 extra MB Dropbox space using this invitation http://bit.ly/agkF3r

"My sarcasm radar is all over the place on this one. Is he joking or or real?"

Confirmed Joke. From his twitter:
"My viral video got about 15,000 hits from SlashDot - http://bit.ly/bMGX9W - Ads made nearly $50.00 today! (proceeds are donated to charity)"

Why do I suddenly feel like an idiot for helping this guy get $50?

http://bit.ly/Sitsi

I have Android Eclair (2.1) running fine on my G1 thanks to Cyanogen.

test 6 seems to be working fine. Although if you install it, there's a patch from Cyanogen to fix an echo audio bug.

Source

The Mozilla development team released Firefox 3.6, codenamed Namoroka, on 21 January 2010 after some anticipation; Firefox 3.5 was a step forward in features but two steps backward in performance. As a minor update, Namoroka was a chance to optimize the last release.

So, now that it's out, did it alleviate some of these problems? Well, let's find out by looking at what 3.6 offers over 3.5.

First and most visible is support for skins, called personas. Firefox developers have been tinkering with the XUL format and they cite its power. They also claim that it has been under-utilized, so personas were a "natural addition."

TraceMonkey received a performance boost, caching more bytecode in RAM using the new "Stored History Integration Table" system which dynamically stores each JavaScript routine as an object in memory in order to more quickly access it during execution.

Firefox's plugin system also received an overhaul, and now lets the user know when a plugin is incompatible. Mozilla also included support for full-screen Theora and WOFF, the Web Open Font File format, as well as additional but otherwise unspecified performance and security enhancements.

Overall, it's a nice list of bullet points for the bump from 3.5 to Nakamora, but the fact that performance wasn't a priority already points away from optimization and to new features. And the features are actually not new at all, but fixes for issues that should have been taken care of during the initial design stages or other numerous upgrades.

For instance, Firefox has been skinnable for years using XUL, and personas are just a hack to this system that allows the user to use bitmapped images as toolbar backgrounds. You are not mistaken if you just had a flashback to Internet Explorer 3.

These personas also slow the browser down, negating any advantage from the TraceMonkey JavaScript engine. One writer on the web even suggests that the TraceMonkey enhancements were done in anticipation of new-feature bloat. Talk about the tail wagging the fox!

Plugin incompatibility usually occurs when a plugin was written for an older version of the plugin system, which demands a question about the wisdom of upgrading the plugin system for Nakamoru the first place. But that's just how Firefox developers roll.

Now, if you're running an incompatible plugin, Firefox alerts you at startup and launches the plugin manager, a JavaScript-based app that contacts Firefox's plugin server and swaps all kinds of metadata in a frantic attempt to update your third party add-ons.

Several of the changes are plainly just developmental masturbation. For example, Theora is the least-used web video codec, with the penetration that the newer QuickTime X has. And WOFF is an open standard that Mozilla wants to support for political reasons that isn't actually in use anywhere.

So what exactly are Mozilla development managers doing?

If a private company with an opaque development model like Apple can apply the breaks and optimize an entire operating system, à la Leopard to Snow Leopard, why can't a public, transparent development team be bothered to do the same for something much less complex like a web browser?

Maybe MSFT is still sore about the 3rd NSA key http://bit.ly/avkiLe

Thank goodness we can still trust Apple because they make a lot of their computers in China.