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It really depends on the question of whether GTK+ and E, and Windows Plus Pack, are covered by the patent.

If they are, then Apple is just dense and stupid, and I hope the patent gets thrown out.

If they aren't the same, then I hope Apple has something really nifty and cool in mind with this patent. ^^

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No, I don't think it would.

I don't know Apple's intentions. I do know that 'behavior' is vague enough that if you went to the extreme of it's definition that it *may* be patent worthy.

I just didn't want the thought that it might be a valid idea be drowned out by all the posts declaiming skins and patents.

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There's a place for art, there's a place for engineering. There's no reason to try to mesh the two.

What, like a Austin Martin, an F1 racer, an Acura NSX, the Golden Gate bridge, or the Arch of St. Louis?

Engineering helps push what is possible with art. Art helps to push what is feasible with engineering.

Apple likes to believe at least that the products they make are a nice blend of art and form with engineering and function.

So dose Ferrari, I think. Or Lamborghini.

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I dunno if widget and menu redefinition was the intent of the Apple patent.

Does the xterm change behavior if the menus attached to it change? Does it change behavior if the buttons attached to it change place and use?

I don't know if Enlightenment and Apple 'themes' are the same. I just know that the patent claims more than just appearance, and 'application behavior'

It could very well be that Apple's patent is invalid insofar as the scope in which Apple intends to apply it.

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The enlightenment I've played with lets me redefine buttons, skins/bmps/images, and mouse actions/events/menus.

I was definitely overzealous in my responses to the initial flurries of theme posts.

The real question is whether Enlightenment's implementation of behavioral changes based on themes is the intent of Apple's patent.

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You're right, those are trivial aspects of theming.

We don't know what the intention of the patent is by the fact that the then planned OS never quite made it to market.

Everything is speculation unless we can ask Ed Voas or Arnaud Gourdol

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What's gwm?

I am but a single person, and not able to find everything, as vast as the net may be.

What does gwm do?

Other than the speculation of Graphical Window Manager? Good Window Manager?

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You might be right.

I just didn't think all the anti-patent bashing folks should be the only voice.

On the other hand, it might not be the same. The wording of the patent is vague enought that E might be in the same field, and if it is then the patent falls due to prior art.

But if E is not at all what Apple's patent means when they say 'behavioral change', then E also has nothing to fear from Apple's patent, right?

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The claim mentions behavior changes of an application when a theme is selected. Does the behavior of an application change under Motif or any other skinnable apps when a theme is selected?

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All these examples only cover half the claim in the patent, where appearance is selected by the theme engine.

The other part of the first claim was that behavior would change when selected by a theme engine.

I don't know that applications have changed behavior when a theme is changed. Does your DOS box change to a CSH shell when you change themes in Windowblinds? That's a speculation on my part on theme selected behavior modification.

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Where they implement behavioral changes in the application due to theme selection?

I honestly don't know, other than speculating, if there is prior art.

Legalese not being my forte, I had imagined...

A CLI <-> Explorer <-> HTML browser <-> Finder

When selecting themes.

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The claim in the patent is that the theme engine can change not only the appearance(skinning) but the behavior(?) of an application.

I don't know if that is 'obvious' but I can't think of prior art, either ^^

My example is a CLI going from bash to zsh, or Explorer styled browsers, or Finder styled windows, when a theme is selected.

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Perhaps my posts have been in error ^^;

The first claim describes a theme engine in which an application can change appearance(skinning) or behavior(?) when a theme is selected.

Is behavioral changes covered by the Copland whitepapers?

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Here's why. In the first claim the patent mentions the changing of either appearance(skinning) or behavior(?) of an application when a theme is selected.

Theming, in this example, has *not* been done for years and years. Give me an example of an application that changed behaviors when a theme was selected? My example would be an xterm changing from csh to bash, or from a CLI interface to a Finder interface, or an Explorer interface, or even a 3d Doom style interface ^^

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It specifically mentions that when a theme engine is used that the appearance *or* the behavior of the application in question changes.

I don't think I've seen very much prior art of a theme engine in which changing themes changed the behavior of a program!

An example I used in a higher level post was of a xterm window that changed shells based on themes, or changing to a finder style browser, a netscape style browser, or to an explorer style browser.


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• providing a plurality of themes, each theme controlling an appearance and behavior of objects rendered on said graphical user interface, wherein at least one of said appearance and said behavior is controlled differently for an object when said graphical user interface is operated in accordance with one theme than when said graphical user interface is operated in accordance with another theme;
• providing a plurality of theme engines, each theme engine associated with a different theme type, wherein at least one of said theme engines is hard-coded and at least one of said theme engines is a data-driven, parametric engine;
• selecting a theme from among said plurality of themes;
• identifying one of said plurality of theme engines associated with said selected theme; and
• loading, by said identified theme engine, theme data for operating said graphical user interface in accordance with said selected theme.

Why wouldn't I be serious?

Put Apple into the mix of hardware vendors climbing all over each other to get the GeForce3 done first; of Creative Labs, Guillemot, and Apple, Apple just had the most persuasive negotiation, cash, or development team. I don't know which.

Apple, unlike Creative or Guillemot, sells systems, so maybe they have a better bargaining chip than standalone card manufacturers!

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"Artificially" has nothing to do with it.

NVIDIA needs to work with a hardware manufacturer to make money, or at least license it to someone. Unless I'm mistaken, NVIDIA is fabless and without any capability to make cards.

So if Apple got the card first, it's because they either made it themselves (possible) or they're buying from someone else. Regardless, they did the footwork because it's important to them to make inroads into the enthusiast and game community. Don't ask me why they think so, but it's unquestionable that the GeForce 3 is a gamer's card.

Dell could have done it. Compaq could have done it. IBM could have done it. Apple just did their job and got themselves a scoop on the rest of the industry.

NVIDIA can't sell to the PC world unless someone comes up and makes a card for them to sell.

It might even be possible for PC people to order and buy the GeForce3 card from the Apple store, plop it into a PC, grab the NVIDIA drivers, and see it do amazing things

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Well, yeah, that enters in the art and science of color spaces, color volumes, etc.

If I'm not mistaken there is software and support for color matching volumes as closely as possible. IE, the publishing house or the print directors know when artwork is going to be 'out of gamut'.

I don't myself work with these processes, so I only have hearsay and speculation to fall back on.

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To generalize your question, what software is used that sound cards could accelerate?

How about digital USB speaker output? Right now that sucks up CPU resources that a good sound card should be able to handle.

How about MP3 encoding/decoding? Right now it's a trivial 2% of my system, but if I up the bitrate, the number of channels, and the 'effects', I can start soaking up CPU. Why not have a soundcard accelerate it the same way video cards accelerate 3d graphics?

How about voice recognition software? Hardware accelerate that!

3d sound: Anything that uses a 3d library should be able to use 3d sound. Imagine Quake3. If the soundcard could access the level data, the walls, the enemy placement, the weapon type, etc, it could actually do occlusions, echoes, reverbs, damping, amplification, cancelation, etc.

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• 3d sound acceleration (like a video card's).
• Digital sound acceleration (for USB speakers and devices)
• MP3 encoding acceleration (for higher bitrate encoding, take away some CPU load)
• Transparent 5.1 channel sound support (For DVDs, movies, Quicktime, etc)
• Hardware acceleration for voice recognition/synthesis

Yes indeedy, it is very much about Thinking Different.

The techy PC market is saturated. People have sated themselves on cheap ram, cheap CPUs, cheap storage, and cheap video cards. There's no reason for PC growth to grow.

So now Apple is probably targetting the *non* techy market. Coincindentally that also happens to be the female market. Girls. The ones who don't know or care about the iMac's increased graphics memory or CPU speed, or video chipset speed.

The ones who buy new pairs of shoes to match their new dresses to match their new handbags etc.

If they can hook these girls even once, Apple can almost guarantee multiple resells as a fashion industry. Basic black with chrome highlights. Iridescent green with transparent blue panels. Etc.

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You know, there's another term for that; color calibration, monitor calibration, gamma correction. All Apple machines automatically do that, it's built into the software. The monitors are also shipped calibrated. The video cards all support it as well. On the PC world it wasn't really a feature until a few years ago, and a lot of people have no idea that it exists. There are reasons why Apple still sells big in the publishing industry, because they want this feature; what they see in a brochure is identical to what they scan is identical to what they print is identical to what they email to their partners in the UK is identical to what is printed at the bookshop in Singapore is identical to what they see in their heads.

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Star Wars had a cop out answer for your allegation. It was a time of greater glory and civilization, before the fall of the old Republic and the rise of the Empire. It was, as it were, the Golden Age of Rome, the Pax Romana, before the middle ages, before the crusades, before the Vandals and the Visigoths.

If I it really is about the birth of the Federation, they could do some really cool stuff. And I don't think they should be limited to making our future match with the past of ST:TOS technology. Make it a series as groundbreaking as the first Star Trek, about teamwork and survival and exploration. Make it about first contact, and learning how to be polite in a rude and uncaring world.

Those are my thoughts. If they pulled that off, I think I'd watch.

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I don't think cloning of humans was the point at all of the original post; just that cloning technology would be an enabler of future technology and advances independent of whether clones are made and whether clones are a problem.

If clone technology is developed but not used for reproductiver purposes, because sex is just plain easier and more fun, already your points 1, 4, and 6 are negated. If we had a population problem, it would be because of cloning. Clones still need wombs, be it artificial or borrowed, to gestate in, so it is really the threat of artificial wombs that might pose a population threat.

So to address your point 2, what's the use of a clone:

Research.

Take an adult mouse. Extract several cells from it. Use clone technology to make that several hundred identical embryoes. Now you can fiddle with the genes such that every single one has *one* difference. Activate a gene, or silence it. Change a gene. Transpose a gene. Replace a gene. Remove a gene entirely. Change the gender!

Then allow them all to come to term.

Lather, rinse, repeat, until we can better understand how genes work, what they do, etc.

This research is independant of 3; it will allow for genetic improvement of a person who has genetic defects, genetic targeting of diseases at each specific phase without affecting the entire organism, specific targeting within an organism due to genetic expression, say only bone marrow or liver cells or subdermal epithelials.

As per number 5: Tinkering of any sort leads to problems. Look at the pollution and environmental destruction we're responsible for. Look at the misery and suffering we've created through misunderstanding of our role in the enivronment and the ecosystem. Does this balance out the gains and benefits of industry, production, civilization, and growth?

I guess the nihlist or some oter ism may say human race be damned, we're just a blight on the face of the earth anyway. But all this tinkering, exploring, building, is supposed to make us happier, better, and stronger. Grow, adapt the environment to suit us, etc.

And I disagree to some extent with your last paragraph. You argue that genetic engineering is useful if used responsibly: How about correcting near or farsightedness? Osteoperosis? PMS? Hair loss? Suntanning? I would almost think that *anything* we do today with chemicals or physical treatments to our bodies are fair game when we have better genetic understanding. Even plastic surgery, for the reason that Genetic Engineering will just be another tool, like the scalpel, the drug, the laser, etc.

AIDs has no connection with that. AIDs is not a reaction to Earth being 'overcrowded'. AIDs is an opportunistic disease taking advantage of an unfortunate environment created by poor human behavior and choice.

Specifically:
Earth is overcrowded as it is.

That's subjective. Large portions of the Earth are sparsely populated, and large portions of the earth are densely populated. It is knowable that with proper infrastructure that being densely populated is not a problem, and that with excellent infrastructure we can redistribute our population density for better survival. Overpopulation.com mentions that the average density of Africa is ~ 25/square km. North America is 15/square km. Europ had density 30/square km. Asia had density ~ 152/square km!

http://www.overpopulation.com/density_europe.htm l
http://www.overpopulation.com/density_north_amer ic a.html
http://www.overpopulation.com/density_africa.htm l
http://www.overpopulation.com/density_asia.html

Look at AIDS... where is AIDS most prevalent?

AIDS is not prevalent in the most crowded places on earth, Europe or Asia.

It's a whole different argument concerning AIDS in Africa, revolving around lifestyles, reproductive practices, quality of life, and levels of education and knowledge.

But you're seriously misinformed.

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What was that movie? Earth Girls are Easy?

I imagine girls with tongues like that would be real popular too.

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They may not be liable as individuals for what Rambus the corporation does, per se.

But what about the charge of performing crimiinal/illegal activites, lying and fraud, using Rambus as the tool from which they profit?

Framed differently, aren't they guilty of using and taking advantage of Rambus and it's employees and shareholders to perform acts of fraud and break of contract to their gain?

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Probably just dormant until they can reengineer the next big thing. It's not they don't have talent or technology, I think. They did sell their product to Sony for the PS2, Nintendo, for the N64, and Intel, for the P4.

Come to think of it, all three are having problems. I wonder if it really is because of Rambus?

Well, at least they have a good marketing department.

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There is nothing wrong with the idea of competition, of winners and losers.

But most of life is not a zero sum game. Driving in traffic is not zero sum. Me getting to my destination does not mean you don't get to yours. Me taking an open spot may deny you the chance to take said open spot, but the rules of the game is not to take all the open spots. It's to reach a destination.

Finding a mate is not a zero sum game. Three guys chasing after one girl may be zero sum, in that one winner denies the others the chance at the girl, but the act of finding a mate does not deny others their chance at finding mates. The rules are to find mates, and deny others the chance has almost no bearing, except where multiple people may have the same person in mind.

Competition is only useful in it gives you a benefit. I mean, that's a very basic definition for anything. If competition gives you bad results, than it's less than useful. Competitive driving, during traffic, just makes traffic worse.

A lot of other people have already made responses on how mating is not a zero sum game. Hopefully it's a net positive game increasing the value of all humanity.

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I didn't know that existed!

I sorta wish Netscape were smarter too. That the default action when I start typing when it has focus is to redirect the text into the location-bar...

Thanks!

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Graph oriented? I dunno.

It doesn't seem to me a new language, as perhaps a new flavor of an older idea, like Lisp?

Use some predicate calculus notation to start describing and defining functionality, as well as for allowing one to show correctness and validation.

Map it closer to today's object paradigms without the constraints of matching 'objects' as defined as nouns with verb-methods, instead using a more abstract concept of packages, super-elements, and sub-elements, and algorithms. Given that they haven't finished documenting algorithms, I'm out on a limb here.

The goal would seem to have something closer to predicate calculus, and thus something easier to hold provably correct and functionally correct.

Instead of the many to one mapping of source to algorithm, it should be closer to one to one, I guess.

Of course, I was never very good at predicate calculus, and maybe everything I've said is obvious, and I'm being stupid.

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As per vorbis, I've switched.

Sure, all the mp3s I get from friends are, well, mp3s. But everything I encode is vorbis because, well, the differences are small enough that it costs me *nothing* to use them. It's open source, it's free, it's better quality, etc. So all the music from all my CDs are Vorbis.

So to answer your question, this does have some benefits.

This is *not* a fundamentally new type of language. I think if you've seen predicate calculus, cellular automata, and lexical parsing in the same class, you'll find a lot of this familiar.

What this is doing is mapping predicate logic/calculus (I think, I sucked at predicate calculus) with structured programming. It's also very different too.

But it starts to think of programs in a level even higher than text, if that makes sense. I could almost think it's trying to treat the source code as annotation and description of a program, and not the actual implementation.

Hmm, analogy...

It's different than 'visual' thinking, in which you have functional blocks with busses, data directions, transformations, blocks and checks, etc.

Eidolon almost certainly forces a different way of thinking, but I don't think it's terribly foreign. In this case, the 'language' cannot exist outside of it's runtime, or context. In this way, it's similar to lisp, or scheme(I think). Conceivable one could write a Eidolon program in a regular text file and 'open'/'run'/'compile' it with the kernal, and be able to validate it in some sense.

Argh, I feel tongue tied. It should allow for very high level structured programming in terms of thinking at an abstract object level. Things are defined in a very predicate calculus way, with the textual representation almost becoming documentation for the structure defined by the calculus. This may have more functional similarites to Lisp than I thought, but it's been awhile since I've played with Lisp.

It's probably a good start towards mission critical code style, in which there needs to be correctness, validation and verification built into the language in the first place.

Anyone want to help me out here?

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What, isn't *every* person who buys an Apple a consumer?

Regardless of whether Apple cares about or caters to developers, it's nothing to laugh at in terms of making development easy or easier. Anything that makes developing on an Apple easier is a win for Apple, because it gets them more developers.

If it means greating their own CC based on GCC with functional improvements, or an IDE, developer libs, or kits... I dunno.

But development user interface is as valid a concern as graphical user interface, or any other user interface.

Because computers are getting more powerful and more capable, they can start acting more intelligently.

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I can't speak for his vision. I can only talk about my interpretation of his vision.

If I get the gist correct, it's something along the lines that if the OS UI isn't helping you do your task, it's hurting you, and is unnecessary.

At the extreme, it can be taken that the common Window, Icon, Mouse, Pointer interface is not necessarily best suited for a task. Why do we need icons? Why do we need widgets? Menu bars? Windows?

That doesn't mean they aren't useful, it just means in certain situations, they aren't necessary. Like in a game of Quake, where the interface is mouse and keyboard, screen, and speakers. Or a game of Dance Dance Revolution, where the interface is scrolling arrows, flashing screen, and a large touchpad.

It's difficult, I think, to make a mockup as you suggest, but here's a good example of using the OS UI as an advantage. Burning CDs under MacOS.

Why should you open a program to burn CDs? Why should burning a CD be any different than writing to your floppy, to your network drive, to your hard disk? As demonstrated by Steve Jobs, you drag the files you want on your CD to the CD icon or CD folder, and the system burns it for you! I would expect making music CDs and mp3 CDs is only *margainally* more difficult, in which you would modify the filesystem of the CD in the same way you might change the filesystem on a floppy (PC or Mac), or properties of a network drive (private or open, who has write access, etc)

Drag an mp3 to a music CD, and maybe, hopefully, it gets converted to CDA! Grab a music track from a CD, and with the help of CDDB, it should be compressed to an mp3, a wav, or some other format on the hard disk!

Another example that is less WIMP in nature. Say you wanted to visit http://www.apple.com

The GUI the Mac espouses is verb and noun in nature. Say there's a floating CLI; or even a hidden one. If it has focus, just typing

go www.apple.com

Should bring up netscape with the Apple website

Typing

find google powerbook titanium reviews

Should bring up in google all the relevant search hits concerning the powerbook+titanium+reviews

There's no icons, no mouse, no windows, no pointer. Just type away at the 'bare' OS. It's similar in action to you going up to a Mac and speaking into a mic:

Computer, find, google, powerbook, titanium, reviews, execute.

And a smart voice powered system should bring up Netscape, at the google site, with the proper search results.

But that's my interpretation.

Other interpretations exist, I'm sure.

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I read disdain where there probably wasn't any. Oops!

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Why should the UI be constrained to envelope icons, pencil and paper icons, or a blue crystal E?

If Apple were to tap into the Terminal app, and create a CLI.app of magnificent proportions...

Imagine typing into CLI.app the web address you want to visit:

Goto http://slashdot.org
Visit http://www.apple.com
URL http://www.yahoo.com

Or better yet

search net Apples OS X beta rebate

And it automagically loads Google, from IE, with those search constraints? Why not?

Or for your doc; just start typing:

New Doc

And a blank doc starts up

Open Game Design Draft 2

And the Game Design Draft 2 document opens.

Those are relatively easy because both require text input in the first place.

But by analogy, Apple already has their CD-R interface, their CDDB interface, etc. Why should it be constrained to icons and widgets? That's a holdover from 20 years ago. It doesn't have to be that way, anymore, if a better way can be found, right?

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What?

It's bad to click install and then finish/done?

If Apple had another revolution up their sleeve, I would guess...

a button 'compile', then a button 'install', then a button 'done'!

Command Line Interface is an issue independent and unrelated to the people who have ever or never compiled things before. The OS that makes difficult things easy, and the impossible, possible.

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That's some of the problem, right there.

Jef is almost talking about doing away with icons, close boxes, and button bars. Try to imagine what the UI to a word processor is without the preconceived notions of toolbars, icons, OS widgets, etc. The thought that the OS itself gets in the way of the app!

When you use your word processor, you use the keyboard to type; there's most of the input. So why not use that? That almost means a return to the command line, if you haven't noticed.

So you want to write a letter:

At a cli, just type:
write a letter to TWX the Linux Zealot

The OS should launch the preferred editor, with the appropriate format for a letter.

If one is still using a mouse, just click on where to start typing. Is it the header?

TWX the Linux Zealot
10220 Davenport Dr
Cupertino, Ca 95145

That's finished. Where next? The body?

Dear TWX,

It is with deepest regret that I inform you...

Then you finish your letter. Now what? email it? Print it? save it? What UI would you use if you didn't have icons to save you? No floppy disk, no printer, no letter icon?

How about the CLI again?

save letter to TWX the Linux Zealot at c:\documents\Louis\private

Letter interface closes!

Or, type:

save

And a window shows up with all unsaved documents. Click on the one that you want (pictures? the first line? Time and date? command that started it?) and it saves it. Do you care where? No, not really, as long as there is enough space, it's easy for you to find it, and the OS can find it again.

Printing. Easy. type:

print

Or

print last saved document

Or print last document

Or print letter to TWX

You get the idea. Icons and widgets, while useful at the time, are not the end all and be all of UI!

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Jef is right.

When you're writing a document in your favorite OS, be it OS X, Win2k, or Linux, it should be the interface of writing the document, and not the interface of the OS, that you should be dealing with. The constraint, put before by he and his crew upon the first iteration of the Mac OS, was of consistent UI so that all apps looked alike and felt alike. It was supposed to lessen the learning curve.

What he is saying isn't wrong. If the OS is an interface you have to learn first, before you can use your app or do your work, it is a waste of time, it is unnecessary. Hardware should be powerful enough today that the OS intrusion should be minimal. When you're using something like Netscape, a web browser, it should be a world of URLs, links, images, files, and content. You shouldn't have to worry about fonts, except perhaps as a preference, or printer setup, except when you want to choose specific printers, or about security settings, except when you want warnings or such. Compare that with Linux, and compare that with Windows. Printers and fonts and stuff just works behind the scenes. Netscape does it's part, and gets what it needs from the OS, without having to fiddle with configuring printers for Netscape, configuring fonts or font servers for Netscape, etc.

Or something similar with CD burning, under OS X and under Windows. If the drive is connected, all you have to do is drag files to it to burn stuff to it! No interface windows, no volume information, no format or filename or filesystem fiddling. Just treat is as another device to write to!

Treat ripping music, making mp3s, and burning them as one set of functions. That's iTunes. OS doesn't get in the way. In fact, if OS really didn't get in the way, the CD should automatically connect with CDDB, so that when you popped up explorer or Finder, the CD has all the names, titles, album info, etc. Drag one of these items into an MP3 folder, or just drag the whole CD into the MP3 folder, and mp3 files, or even a whole mp3 album, gets created. The UI, in this case drag and drop, don't get in the way, and are the seamless transparent means by which one could operate. The OS merges functionality with the Apps involved, but it's the app you're using that gets the focus.

His much maligned word processing example; start typing, and the OS should figure out you're writing an email, or a letter, or drafting a document. Does the system do it for you now? No, you need to find the right icon or the right folder, first. Why should this be? Why should the system be smart enough to figure out what we need? If you want to start browsing, just typing http://slashdot.org into a commandline-like interface should be enough to bring up Netscape. If you want to send an email, typing louisjr@nospam.com should bring up the right email program. Want to play music? How about 'play sad_songs' Or pop a CD into the drive. Want to copy it? 'copy CD to c:\scratch\music'

Of course, my own guesses and implementation of Jef's idea may be broken too. But I think there's merit.

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Poor you, you'd have been enlightened if you had followed that link!

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It's only beta!

Since it uses similar techniques to LCD manufacturing, expect similar sizes and pixel densities. Supposedly 20% cheaper because one doesn't need a backlight any more.

However, that still means $1000 for a similar OEL disply. Or would that OED?



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Here

Mentions '20% cheaper' and uses less power than LCD...

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Probably because you wouldn't have a choice.

What if this takes less power than an LCD? Then you really have no design choice if you want to create a powerful PDA that still happens to be miserly.

You may never see this on your desktop, replacing your CRT. But your next Palm, or Gameboy Advance, or handheld computing unit, may be built around the OEL for other properties; size, weight, power, etc.

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My point was that you can't try books online.

Right now they are separate activities; browse a book in a store, or a library, or a friend's bookshel. Listen to music over the radio, on a friend's CD, or on the music channel. See a movie on TV, etc.

If someone could combine the browse, the search, the information, and the purchase of items all on one site, they might have something powerful ^^

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I'd disagree on your interpretation, but agree on your sentiment.

Dot-com slump/failure *was* due to an over-focus on technology, and lack of focus on market. If there is a technical development, it becomes a market when someone sells it correctly. Otherwise, it will flounder. If a dot-com had no market, it wasn't because the market didn't exist, it was because they failed to create, master, and maximize their market. They had excellent technical products without problems they could solve.

So to address some of your points: Buy groceries online?

How about combining a recipe site, with grocery shopping, with delivery services, as well as streaming video 'lessons'? How about adding 'cooking' services to deliver the finished meal to your home? How would you tailor it to make money? I don't know, but it seems natural to combine the many recipe sites with the grocery sites with the delivery sites.

Who wants to buy groceries online? How about people who don't know how to pick a canteloupe? Or know when to buy bananas? Or can't tell which wine is any good? Or can't decide between red potatoes or yellow potatoes? Or don't know the subtleties of the different cuts of steaks? There's people who don't cook, that's obvious, because of all the fast food restaurants and dine in places all over SiValley. My reasoning could be flawed, since I'm pulling from the experience of myself, my college friends, and all their friends. We cook for fun, but we don't know what we're doing ^^

<em>Online purchasing is ideal for commodity items where you know what you're getting the moment you order it. Books, CDs, software... </em>

The genius who can overcome this mindset and problem will make lots of money ^^. A limitation that can be overcome is called an opportunity.

Reread what you said. Books, CDs, software. How can you buy *new* books, CDs, and software, online, if you've never tried the book, heard the music, or used the software? There are *outside* distribution channels that sell these products, and the internet is just used to organize the buyers and sellers. So content sites that allow one to use software for free, unlock functionality for a nominal fee, and unlimited download and use for a higher fee, is an *opportunity*. Or with books. Browse for free. Read unlimited amounts online for a small service charge (maintenance fee?), get hardcopies for a small price. Same with CDs. Or DVDs. Etc.

There's a market. Someone who wants to get all the niceties of radio broadcast, or tv broadcast, or libraries, combine it with the catalog, search, review, and query capabilities of the internet, tie it with the relative distribution efficiency of the internet, as well as the large potential market audience, and finally tieing into the consumer need to 'own', can make lots of money. Right now they are all independent. I can look up reviews and information online. I can hear, read, or watch in real life. I can order and purchase online, in a separate transaction. I cannot yet get all three services from one site, or a group of sites. Amazon is *building* itself that way, but it's not there yet.

Do you see what I mean?

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If the author of this article, referencing Leadbeater, is correct in his interpretation... I'm glad the geeks won!

I so do not want to live in a world as described by Leadbeater... The net is perfectly fine the way it is, and in a very bottoms up, needs driven way, is evolving, albeitly in a non-hurried and eventful way, into whatever it is best suited and best needed for.

We *already* have television and radio networks for the dissemination of media and 'content'. The net itself is a self publishing, self pruning system where people can spout, and fade away to noise if no one wants to listen. I like it that way.

If I knew what I was working on, e-speak, would make the world *more* like Leadbeater's vision, I would quit.

It also sounds like Leadbeater is trying to 'rewrite' history to reflect his biases. I hope he fails!

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Dynamically change the clock multiplier?

I was actually thinking that if you have some simple asynch logic to generate a clock signal, you could probably pretty trivially do the clock scaling.

However, I don't know how linear the ramp would be, nor do I know if the XScale has a linear ramp. Does XScale have a small set of pre-defined clock rates, or is it literally some continuous well defined function determinate upon the input voltage?

Oh well, neat trick, regardless.

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Just a question, if you really do have internal access to the X-scale stuff. This MHz based on voltage sounds suspiciously like asynchronous processing, in which changing the input voltage changes the rate at which signals pull up or down.

Is it some clock like signal that is asynchronous? Or are portions of the control pipeline asynchronous? Or is this just terribly nifty synchronous logic?

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As an AC reply to your post has pointed out, technological improvements help too.

IE, all the theory for Relativity and relativistic effects have been around since Maxwell and Newton, with Newton providing the classical approximations and Maxwell providing the framework for information at the speed of light in 1862, but it wasn't until 1905 that relativity was born from Einstein. Why the 50 year wait?

So the argument 'do you seriously suppose that in over 100 years of eeg no-one would have detected them before?' isn't valid. The lack or proof of mirror cells is not at all tied to how long it took to detect them ^^

Excuse my pathetic attempt to use Einstein and Maxwell in my argument. Just using the example that having all the information available, and actually creating something from it, is not necessarily so simple.


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If you target a game into the context of winners and losers, then you may be right;

But if you have 5 people playing and only one winner at any one time, is that zero sum?

1 winner - 4 losers = -3?
Like Q3Arena, for example, in which there can be teams of 5 on 5 playing capture the flag for 9 rounds. Sure, at the end of ten rounds there can only be one winner, but for each individual playing, the game is much more than zero sum, winning and losing.

It's the team play, the cooperation, the strategy, the resource and player allocation, the team to team interaction. It's couched in the traditional competitive zero sum winner takes all game, but the actual game itself is so much more than just being the winner of 9 rounds.

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