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Slashback: Unenforceability, Conflagration, Cans
a filtration system for your 2.4 goldfish Jay Beale points to this followup to his "Why iptables rocks" article of a few weeks ago: "It fulfills my promise to show how to actually build a home/SOHO firewall with Linux 2.4's iptables aka Netfilter. It contains the full code, explained piece by piece, to build a working firewall with 2.4, including all kinds of cool packet mangling for load balancing, redirecting stuff to transparent proxies, or avoiding nmap stealth scans ..."
Out of embarrassment, perhaps? An unnamed correspondent points out this bit of news regarding Symantec's patent on software updates. The upshot is, without pointing out that updating software incrementally is not a patent likely to win them a lot of favor from the industry they have simply decided not to enforce it. Smart move.
Not yet in the can, or the cube either Casey Ho of San Jose's Leland High wrote with some interesting information for those interested in tiny amateur satellites; Leland is one of the handful of schools whose students are designing experimental payloads for inclusion on an upcoming launch.
[We] are focusing on making a CubeSat. Leland High school officially has one satellite to launch, and there are four teams now competing to make a design that will be approved by CalPoly technicians. My own group will attempt to broadcast a powerful long term signal using only a small satellite. The project is not easy since there are a lot of scientific guidelines we must meet. We are discussing how to create a reliable circuit and transmitter that will function in extreme temperatures, vacuum, radiation, and most importantly, after an extra powerful rocket launch. The requirements are available here.Machinima makes the grade ILL Robinson writes: "Wanted you guys to know that our Quake II-based machinima film, Hardly Workin', received top honors at Showtime Networks' Alternative Media Festival - alt.sho.com. In an awards ceremony on February 8th at MTV Studios, Showtime awarded The ILL Clan with awards in both Best Experimental Short as well as Best of SHO for the festival. Using Machinima (films created with a PC game that can be modified with users' assets), The ILL Clan's film gained notice from the festival's judges - citing Hardly Workin' as a short with a high degree of innovation, design & creativity. We're pretty excited to receive the recognition, all the way from fans of ours who had been following us from the beginning and now, from a top-tier cable TV network. Cruise on over to our site for the official announcement, or to Machinima.com for more machinima works. And thanks also to the Slashdot readers, as they helped spread the word of what Machinima is all about."For some of you posters out there, sorry, no living organisms or explosives are allowed on the satellites. ;)"
Congatulations!
Hopefully the Borgs didn't patent the Cube in space idea. I'd hate to have them come and claim there rights. Ernest.
Ernest J.W. ter Kuile
So let me get this straight: You are going to file a frivolous lawsuit because Symantec chose not to file a frivolous lawsuit based on an obvious and unenforcible patent. God bless America!
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If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
When you can manipulate the atom, there is no point having huge unwieldy craft several metres long - why not just build something the size of a blade of grass?
Because your grassblade starship won't have enough power to send a signal back to earth to report its findings.
This is the main factor that provides a final lower limit on the size/mass of space probes, be they in-system or interstellar. An in-system one that stays inside the orbit of Mars can get away with being big but light, as it can draw power from the sun. For the outer solar system or for deep space, it'll have to carry a radiothermal power source large enough to power a microwave beam that outshines background noise and instrument noise when seen from Earth.
The electronics for the transmitter aren't going to be small or light either.
A friend once showed me a procurement spec for a (foreign) military system that had a requirement to operate at -300C. We had a good laugh, and he confirmed it was a typo (the actual spec was for -30C).
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I could see Microsoft getting rather upset about this patent... Can you say "Windows Update"?
Whether you use Windoze or not, same thing...
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Failure to enforce a patent does not result in the loss of a patent (take a look at the well discussed Unisys GIF patent of the even more slimy Rambus patents). If a trademark isn't vigorously defended, it can become diluted and therefore lose protection. A trademark exists for a word or form (such as the shape of an iMac, IIRC), while a patent is for an idea or implementation.
If I could only live my life with my threshold at 4...
The point is, there's a huge difference between a company publically stating that they don't plan to enforce, and granting an irrevocable royalty-free license to use the patent to the general public. Ten years from now, if Symantec sees their profits starting to dry up, what do you want to bet that this policy will change for the sake of a cash grab. Unlike other forms of intellectual property, such as trademarks (and to a lesser extent, copyright), a company isn't required to enforce their patent to maintain rights over it, and they're fully allowed to change their policies regarding the patents.
Suppose I should be thankful that Canada doesn't grant or respect software patents.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
Note to self, withdraw bid for anthrax from EBAY and cancel the order for the micro-sat,
move to plan 2
MUhhahahah
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Does anyone actually have a Java program designed to control air traffic, or for the operation of a nuclear facility?
For Example, there is this Story about the war of DirectTV against hackers. Direct TV for the past FOUR YEARS did incremental upgrades to their systems to try to stop hackers from stealing their signal. They finally inmplemented a gradually update program that convertly set up a complete system upgrade, sort of like a digital jigsaw puzzle, with the last piece shuffling and re-compiling the pieces, and locking the pirates out when they pulled the final trigger.
So in any case, just the idea of online upgrades before this little bit of coding is demonstrated prior art by DirectTV
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Or you install OpenBSD and have a firewalling router with one line of configuration. ONE. I'm not kidding.
Or you install a Windows NT and pull the network cable out and have a firewalling router with no lines of configuration. NONE. I'm not kidding.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10);'
There seems to be many small projects going on of note that could use the support of many minds. The people should stop competing against each other (I am against the idea that competition spurs the advancement of technology) and these smaller teams should start working together. Better to have one succeed than all of them fail.
:-)
On that same note....
It would seem to me that NASA should open their arms to the brains of the world. A true international project, would be an opensource project, where all minds of can offer their guidence and help for free. Where getting more for your dollar seems to be something NASA is interested in, it would seem that they should look towards our community.
If the "Space Community (NASA...Smaller Projects)" start working together we might see real results a lot faster.
-Angreal
P.S. I just want to walk on the Moon before I die - a small vacation.
And looks set to remain so for the forseeable future. Despite a lot of hype generated by Drexler and his fellow zealots, nanotechnology is still a purely theoretical psuedo-science, supported solely by a few developments in molecular manipulation that in reality have little to do with Drexler's ideas of nanoassemblers.
Until an actual working model is proposed I have little time for nanotechnology and its grandiose claims. Every two-bit prophet has claimed that their creations will change the world, and yet they rarely do. Just look at the computer. For all the revolutionary talk about how it will free us from the burdens of work, now all we do is spend more time working, because computers have enabled us to do more!
Nanotech is not the answer to all our future problems. Hell for now it's not the answer to anyone's problems, except maybe Drexler's bank balance and a few labs hoping for Government funding. Maybe you should be looking for a more scientific solution?
I would guess that exploration of other star systems in the far off future will be performed by very small nanotechnological space vehicles.
When you can manipulate the atom, there is no point having huge unwieldy craft several metres long - why not just build something the size of a blade of grass?
With nanotech, it would still be enormously powerful.
--
Clarity does not require the absence of impurities,
/* And you'll never guess what the dog had */
/* in its mouth... */
--Larry Wall in stab.c from perl
it scares me that they need to explicitly say 'no explosives', like there are a bunch of kids who wanted to sent TNT into space.
Along those lines, I've got a (formerly) solar calculator that has been running for over ten years continuously. Unless it breaks, I fully expect that it will continue to work long after I'm dead.
I painted its solar cell with the radium-based luminous paint that was used on clock and watch faces before it was discovered to be dangerous. It seems that the beta particles and low-energy gamma rays very well "illuminate" the solar cell.
You could easily power a D-I-Y microsatellite in this way, without having to have to engineer systems to deploy solar cells once in orbit.
Is that worse than the explosives?
Instead of using mechanical systems, motors or even explosives (ie. NASA loves exploding bolts - seriously) to deploy fragile solar cells by remote control, in orbit, all you'd need to do is make a nice little bundle of solar cells, coated in this paint, and packaged tightly to prevent damage. All of a sudden, for low-power satellites, you've got a viable power source.
I'm sure Cassini's controversial nuclear power source was a lot more refined, but it doesn't need to be complicated to work well.
As for the radium paint, look around antique shops, volunteer in the workshop of an aviation museum, etc. Old bottles of the paint occasionally turn up - just don't put them in your pockets, and make sure you've washed your hands after using them, and don't scrape the dried-on paint, because the dust is bad. Treat it like a lead-based paint, and you'll be quite safe.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Then I sit back and laugh while NORAD tries to track them boogers.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency