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I was a JOKE.

I think he used secure in two different contexts there...

Secure (1) To make safe.
Secure (4) To get possession of.

> You're American right ...?
No :-)

Seriously, is upliftment a real word? I always thought it to be one of those pseudo-words that were popular in some parts of the world -- if you look closely at the Google results, you'll find quite a number of the 33k results to be from pages written by Asians/Africans. I wouldn't be surprised if upliftment was popular in `local' english (for some values of local) but it's hardly a standard word. On the other hand, the OED has over the past few years been very inclusive in its approach to including words from across the globe (jihad from arabic(?), thali from hindi, and so on) so who knows, somebody could have included upliftment as well.

Encarta can't locate ``upliftment'' (though I know it's hardly the final answer); but then neither does the online cambridge dictionary or dict.org or dictionary.com (which searches through quite a few dictionaries). My old dogeared copy of Oxford Concise also doesn't have the word.

I don't have a subscription to the OED Online, so I can't go to the ultimate authority :-), but please, if you can give me a citation, I'd be very glad (contact info here).

How can something be exponentially more than something else? Do you know what exponential means? Take a hint!

It's not theft, it's breach of contract, scroll up and read several accurate posts on the subject. And if you're still so obtuse as to continue to call it theft, go here and look up all the words that comprise the definitions of STEAL and THEFT, to your hearts content.

And if it weren't for the junk filter you could've quoted websters to back it up. Seriously, if anyone disagrees with you, send them over here and look up the definitions for steal (which requires TAKING), and take, and hell even take it down to the root if you want. Language isn't subjective, and if I had mod points I'd have modded up every post you made on the subject man.

A duplicate to be sure, but not a dupe.

If you aren't sure why, go to dict.org and find out.

--
English - The Illegitimate child of Lation and German.
American - The rebellious teenage child of English.
American Slang - The mid-twenties junkie friend of American.
American Haxor - The LSD-induced comatose still-tripping dog of American Slang.

That's all I have to say about that.

Kraft has one meaning at the moment, however Craft has two distinct meanings (ability to shape things, and vehicle).

AC.

This is all very off-topic, but I'm bored anyway, so I post as anonymous. From dict,

Optical Carrier 3

(OC-3) A {SONET} rate of 3 * 51.84 = 155.52 {megabits} per second, which matches {STS-3}.

No multiplier by 3 is necessary. One OC unit is 51.84 Mbps, or 6,794,772 Bps. This is what I divided by.

Distortion ENGINE? C'mon, really... I know that engine is a catch-all trendy techie word these days, and it DOES fit what you describe under the most general sense of the word, that being "anything used to effect a purpose", but let's specify a bit and call it what you're really talking about.. a FILTER. Far less pretentiously pedantic and vague, don't you think?

</anal rant>

Honestly, uranium, like any other element with a half-life in the billions of years really isn't all that dangerous, except in large quantities. He could put a small sample in, especially if he wrapped it with lead.

Interestingly enough, when I ran Uranium through dict, it came up with an entry from the 1913 Webster's dictionary discussing how a yellow oxide was used to tint glass (with the fluorescence an added bonus), and a black oxide used for porcelain. While that wasn't such a great idea, it shows how uranium isn't an instant kill; there are probably people still alive who used glass or porcelain with uranium in it.

PATRIOTISM, n. Combustible rubbish read to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.

In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.

Let's go through claim (1) for example:

(a) from within the application program running in the general purpose computer, a user issuing one of a "close," "save" or "save as" command for the document using the user input device;

Doesn't that sound like any generic application these days? Can we say "File/Save" anyone (or for the CLI people using vi, ":w"? So this part of this claim applies to practically any desktop application. What they are describing here is existing infrastructure, and nothing that could be considered to be characteristic of their own invention.

(b) automatically translating the command into an event;

Once again, any desktop application. Most GUIs I know are event based, so any menu action is always sent to the application as an event. This even generation process is transparent to the application itself. Once again, hardly unique or original, and definately not an indicator that a particular system is like their own.

(c) the crypto module automatically trapping the event;

One could achieve this by using, say, stegfs. The crypto module is part of the file system driver - it traps the events being sent to things like "open" or "write". There is a catch here - perhaps you could argue that, in order to be covered by this patent, the crypto package would have to intercept the "File/Save" event before that event actually got to the application.

(d) the crypto module automatically obtaining an encryption key value;

Like, say, obtaining a PGP key from a keystore using a cached passphrase? Or perhaps a passphrase that was specified at the time that the steganographic file system was mounted?

Perhaps their system is even more primitive - they pop up a dialog box and ask the user for a passphrase on the spot.

PGPDisk was doing all the stuff up to here a long time ago. So the claim so far sounds very unobvious and definitely not novel.

(e) the crypto module automatically encrypting the document using the encryption key value;

I only wonder if they mean "automatically" as opposed to "manually", or "automatically" as compared to "mechanically" or "algorithmically". To me it sounds like this claim is redundant and obvious. Encrypting the document using any other values than the ones provided by the crypto keys is pretty useless.

(f) the crypto module automatically passing control to an electronic document management system;

What do they mean by "electronic document management system"? A file system is a DMS. Are they just using obfuscated language here, or do they have a particular thing in mind when they say "electronic document management system"? If their patent suits are anything to go by (that link from another response to the original story, BTW), they mean "file system".

(g) the electronic document management system executing the issued "close," "save" or "save as" command;

That's what a DMS would normally do anyway, surely? You could escape this patent by having your encryption module issue its own "save" command, after intercepting the system's own "save" command.

Of course, letting an Electronic Document Management System do the things it's supposed to do is hardly a novel concept.

The Last Paragraph

Then we get to the interesting bit - right at the end:

Although exemplary[1] embodiments of the present invention have been shown and described, it will be apparent to those having ordinary skill in the art that a number of changes, modifications, or alterations to the invention as described herein may be made, none of which depart from the spirit of the present invention. All such changes, modifications and alterations should therefore be seen as within the scope of the present invention.

Thus they are claiming that anything which looks something like this system is also covered by this patent - they're redefining patent law!

[1] They don't even know that a system built as described in their patent would work. exemplary in sense 3 implies that these guys have built a patent on top of a proof-of-concept.

Let's go through claim (1) for example:

(a) from within the application program running in the general purpose computer, a user issuing one of a "close," "save" or "save as" command for the document using the user input device;

Doesn't that sound like any generic application these days? Can we say "File/Save" anyone (or for the CLI people using vi, ":w"? So this part of this claim applies to practically any desktop application. What they are describing here is existing infrastructure, and nothing that could be considered to be characteristic of their own invention.

(b) automatically translating the command into an event;

Once again, any desktop application. Most GUIs I know are event based, so any menu action is always sent to the application as an event. This even generation process is transparent to the application itself. Once again, hardly unique or original, and definately not an indicator that a particular system is like their own.

(c) the crypto module automatically trapping the event;

One could achieve this by using, say, stegfs. The crypto module is part of the file system driver - it traps the events being sent to things like "open" or "write". There is a catch here - perhaps you could argue that, in order to be covered by this patent, the crypto package would have to intercept the "File/Save" event before that event actually got to the application.

(d) the crypto module automatically obtaining an encryption key value;

Like, say, obtaining a PGP key from a keystore using a cached passphrase? Or perhaps a passphrase that was specified at the time that the steganographic file system was mounted?

Perhaps their system is even more primitive - they pop up a dialog box and ask the user for a passphrase on the spot.

PGPDisk was doing all the stuff up to here a long time ago. So the claim so far sounds very unobvious and definitely not novel.

(e) the crypto module automatically encrypting the document using the encryption key value;

I only wonder if they mean "automatically" as opposed to "manually", or "automatically" as compared to "mechanically" or "algorithmically". To me it sounds like this claim is redundant and obvious. Encrypting the document using any other values than the ones provided by the crypto keys is pretty useless.

(f) the crypto module automatically passing control to an electronic document management system;

What do they mean by "electronic document management system"? A file system is a DMS. Are they just using obfuscated language here, or do they have a particular thing in mind when they say "electronic document management system"? If their patent suits are anything to go by (that link from another response to the original story, BTW), they mean "file system".

(g) the electronic document management system executing the issued "close," "save" or "save as" command;

That's what a DMS would normally do anyway, surely? You could escape this patent by having your encryption module issue its own "save" command, after intercepting the system's own "save" command.

Of course, letting an Electronic Document Management System do the things it's supposed to do is hardly a novel concept.

The Last Paragraph

Then we get to the interesting bit - right at the end:

Although exemplary[1] embodiments of the present invention have been shown and described, it will be apparent to those having ordinary skill in the art that a number of changes, modifications, or alterations to the invention as described herein may be made, none of which depart from the spirit of the present invention. All such changes, modifications and alterations should therefore be seen as within the scope of the present invention.

Thus they are claiming that anything which looks something like this system is also covered by this patent - they're redefining patent law!

[1] They don't even know that a system built as described in their patent would work. exemplary in sense 3 implies that these guys have built a patent on top of a proof-of-concept.

"camaraderie"

Hey, you asked.

Correct, it may not have an infinite usable lifetime. It will probably become poisoned eventually and require reprocessing. However a catalyst *cannot* be consumed, only reagents are consumed. As for quantities required, yes that could be a problem, but the more meaningufl limit as they themselves have addressed is simple throughput. As for tantalum, the composition of the catalyst is unknown and therefore speculation considering supply is just that.

Don't forget "peaked".

I think he meant "piqued"

Uh -- what you threw was a glider , not an airplane .

Uh -- what you threw was a glider , not an airplane .

It's also has more than just a web interface. See the DICT RFC. There are clients available etc.

Here's a gloss on what Webster (at dict.org) sez about the word "subsidy":

1. Support, aid, or cooperation; especially extraordinary aid in money rendered to the sovereign or to a friendly power.
   
2. A sum of money paid by one sovereign or nation to another to purchase the cooperation or the neutrality of such sovereign or nation in war.
   
3. A grant from the government, from a municipal corporation, or the like, to a private person or company to assist the establishment or support of an enterprise deemed advantageous to the public; a subvention, as in a subsidy to the owners of a line of ocean steamships.
   

Each of these is interesting -- think of corporations as sovereign pseudo-states, and you can imagine many parallels.

One implication might be that source code is becoming a medium of exchange or a currency, rather than a form of speech!!

2*b || !(2*b) is a tautology

From dict.org

Tautology

A repetition of the same meaning in different words; needless
repetition of an idea in different words or phrases; a
representation of anything as the cause, condition, or
consequence of itself, as in the following lines:

Your sig is composed of two phrases, 2*b and !2*b, the second is not a repetition of the first. A trusim, perhaps, but not a tautology.

Well hell... that sounds more like Microsoft to me...
--

From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:

Theft \Theft\ (?), n.

1. (Law) The act of stealing; specifically, the felonious taking and removing of personal property, with an intent to deprive the rightful owner of the same; larceny.

Note: To constitute theft there must be a taking without the owner's consent, and it must be unlawful or felonious; every part of the property stolen must be removed, however slightly, from its former position; and it must be, at least momentarily, in the complete possession of the thief. See Larceny, and the Note under Robbery.

2. The thing stolen. [R.] If the theft be certainly found in his hand alive, . . . he shall restore double. --Ex. xxii.

A young, attractive actress seen in Mars Attacks, Anywhere but Here, The Phantom Menace, and some other stuff. Look her up in the IMDB.

Some relation of The Prisoner actor Eric Portman?

Probably not. Portman isn't her real last name.

What exactly are 'grits'?

A barely edible breakfast food made from little pellets of corn and found mostly in the southern U.S. Standard diner fare. Look them up at dict.org.

I suspect you're not talking about the stuff you put on the roads in cold weather?

No, though I'd argue (as a U.S. southerner, even) that our grits are barely more edible than the grits you suggest.

What's all this "are belong to us"?

"All your base are belong to us" is from a bad translation of some old video game. "Somebody set up us the bomb," "What you say!!" and "Take off every 'ZiG'" are from the same place. See screenshots of the game, as well as some varyingly amusing parodies here.

before you run your mouth about a "Corporation" check out http://www.dict.org/ and look up the word "Corporation" .. or just as well: get your Websters dictionary out!

I'm sorry, but this annoys me everytime I see it, almost as much as the Playstation 2 being confused with the failed IBM PCs. (PS2 != PS/2)

It's HAMSTER - WITHOUT THE P. HAMPSTER *is* *not* *a* *word*. Look it up!

I am no expert in the english language. I am not even a native speaker. But I assume your use of "you're" here is wrong. I suppose you should better use the word "your".

Second, "ain't" is a word. It's a contraction for "am not" that was valid for a long damned time, and has fallen out of favor (and is often thought invalid) because it was often used improperly. Hence, "I ain't going to put up with this." is a perfectly valid sentence, whereas "You ain't got a damn clue." is not. So, while he used "ain't" incorrectly, your assertion that it's not even a word is no more correct. For reference, see the dictionary.com entry. (Go dictionary.com! Way to not suck!)

Ok, I liked your suggestion. So here it is what dicionary.com says:

ain't (nt) Non-Standard

1. Am not.
2. Used also as a contraction for are not, is not, has not, and have not.

Also, from www.dict.org:

From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) : Ain't \Ain't\ A contraction for are not and am not; also used for is not. [Colloq. or illiterate speech]. See An't.

So, it looks like your particular definition of "ain't" as exclusively "am not" is wrong.

I think you are the one in contradition here.

Patola (Cláudio Sampaio) - Solvo IT
IBM CATE
SAIR GNU/Linux Certified

I'm pretty sure he used dict which checks quite a few dictionaries including Websters, the jargon file, and the gazetteer.

What's a Trimuverant? If you want to use "difficult" words, at least know how to spell them. Maybe you mean tri umvirate?
--

Take a look at WordNet. You can use their online version or download it.

It has also been formatted for the DICT protocol. I wrote a web interface that accesses WordNet and a number of other dictionaries. (dict.org has one too, but I like mine more... and also I noticed theirs after I was finished.)

To answer your question please provide a real world example. In my opinion Microsoft is not an example of this behavior.

No company can 'enforce' anything on any other person unless they can use government or the mafia to coerce that person.

I no of no examples of software firms that can compel any other company to purchase their product. Microsoft is a fine example of this (in my opinion). Other companies can and do provide other operating systems that compete with Windows. I am free to buy BeOS, Linux or OpenBSD to run on my computer if I wish. I don't dispute that Microsoft may attempt to propagate inaccurate information (through third parties] that their OS is better than the competition. I hold that their attempts to poison the information well are ineffective at best and counterproductive at worst.

The ability people choose to buy (or not buy) Microsoft products free from government coercion one way or the other is effective choice. Government intervention the very definition of no effective choice. If government says I shouldn't buy Windows NT I shouldn't have to pay $10 more because Microsoft has to pay for a defense against the vampires at the Justice department, this reduces my effective choice.

I also do not wish to pay $10 less due to government oppression of their competition, should the Justice Department decide that Red Hat Software looks looks small enough to run their protection racket game on them and accuse them of 'monopoly practices'. Ridiculous you say?


I don't know. As any Free Software advocate can tell you, that is such a hypothetical and contrived question in the year 1999 that there probably isn't an answer that makes sense.

Try the The DICT Development Group. They run FILE: The Free Internet Lexicon and Encyclopedia - it's really a dictionary rather than an Encyclopedia, but it is open source, and it is an attempt to fulfill and extend RFC 2229 - A Dictionary Server Protocol.

Take a look at dict.org's dictionary server at http://www.dict.org/bin/Dict, or my version at http://okcomputer.antiflux.org/~s uperfly/dict.cgi.