I seem to recall an interview with Will Wright that mentioned that he was told that he was tasked with making a program to do exactly what you described, but to also test design efficiency of floor-plans. The end result became "The Sims". He was essentially tricked into making a game.
So no surprise that you ended up using it for exactly that, designing buildings.
Did you actually use the sims in the game to test floor-plan efficiency?
My best in-game friend letting me kill her over and over, then chop up her corpse(s) to supply me with body parts which were needed to take advantage of a bug that allowed you to place objects on the walls of a house.
It got to the point we were having to get creative to kill her as fast as possible. A pet White Wyrm turned out to be the best method. One Bite-Death. If he got hungry, I could feed him some of the body parts as well.
"Whoa! How'd you get all that stuff to hang on the wall?"
I hope this guy (and the other people he credits on his page) make a stink about that. Most certainly a lot of funding involved in this, and falsely claiming credit is akin to stealing dude's Pop-Tarts right out of his toaster.
Is it possible such research can be happening along two parallel courses with no awareness of each other? I somehow find that hard to believe.
"I often wonder if people with different-shaped noses have the same problems I do, or if these problems are solved in the nose designs of other races."
There is evidence to suggest that may be the case.
I had similar experiences (probably around the same time as you. Wasted many hours in that same fucking office) and came to the same conclusions, but others as well.
The biggest one was the idea that an invention may be a "better" idea, but make less money. I'll give an example from my own experiences.
I designed a lancet (a device that diabetics(among others) used to draw a drop of blood for glucose testing) that was self-contained, sterile, highly adaptable to need and INCREDIBLY cheap to make. It was also disposable, alleviating the need to keep an item around that could potentially infect other people. It had ONE moving part.
The company I worked for at the time manufactured the best-selling alternative at the time. I created a working prototype (on my own time, with my own materials, equipment) then brought it to work to try and sell the idea to them. Not interested in the slightest.
So I took the idea to the largest lancet distributor in the world (the company I worked for made their lancets, which they in turn sold under license). They wanted nothing to do with it. It took me a little while to figure out why.
They made more money selling a lancet with over 15 parts then they would selling one with only one moving part.
The exact same line of thinking is why cars now come with all the bells and whistles they do. If you increase the over-all cost of the product, you increase the over-all PROFIT derived from the product.
Needless to say, that was the end of my inventing days, for I have morals and I'm a firm believer in the idea of Karma.
So, the tech is a solution to MULTIPLE problems, across multiple disciplines. Now I get it.
"(and to me, deposition sounds like a 2-D process, with a very tediuous 3-D aspect)"
Yeah, that was my take on it as well, and my assumed application for the tech in question. A replacement for tech that wasn't very efficient. I just wasn't sure.
There is plenty of prior art, as the numerous posts in this thread have already shown. One of these students could modify the concept, include their own ideas and head to market.
And before you post a reply, think of all the times MS has done EXACTLY the same thing.
I understand that, but what I don't understand is the advantage this method has over current technology, i.e. carbon deposition techniques, etc. other then the replication factor.
As ridiculous as your idea is, it got me thinking about something else.
Why the FUCK is MS doing this in Canada instead of the US? Do they have their lawyers investigating IP laws to determine what country has the weakest IP laws so that they may more easily take advantage of the situation? Would a Canadian have less chance of redress in OUR courts?
Did they choose a location close enough to Redmond to take advantage of the locals (Washingtonians), yet utilize cross-border loopholes that would prevent ANYONE seeking redress, even American citizens?
Is the idea to create new structures WITHIN the human body(or whatever species, plant, animal, fungus...), or externally, such as another means to create nano-scale devices, but with bio-materials as opposed to non-biological components such as carbon molecules? Both?
It does make sense, either way, as DNA can be coded to self-replicate making any manufacturing processes far easier.
And yes, I am aware that biological entities are, for the most part, made of carbon molecules, at least here on Earth.
I wonder how many companies scour/. for ideas such as yours.
Well, it doesn't really apply to text as the keyboard would, but that is actually a really good idea.
My daughter uses a tablet for everything, including mundane tasks like web-surfing. Easier then switching between the two, I guess. Your idea would solve MY problem as well...sitting down at her machine and having to ask her where her mouse is.
To be honest, I think she would dump the tablet if she had a mouse such as the one you describe.
If "Contests" like this were actually trying to encourage rewarding students for the innovations (as opposed to simply exploiting them), why not give them a slice of the pie, say...5% of the profits generated?
I have YET to see a single "contest" that offered such a reward.
And while I'm on the subject, have you ever noticed that even the losers give up IP rights, so that if the student improves on the idea after the fact, it still belongs to the company sponsoring the "contest", with NO rewards at all? One more aspect that points to the real motives of the sponsors.
You're probably correct. Their employees more then likely already realize MS will patent the ideas REGARDLESS, and steal them anyways, so whats the difference, right?
How about the students sit on their ideas and market them when the keyboard comes out?
Should be worth more then a lousy $2000, especially considering the fact that the students will have NO intellectual property rights once they submit through the contest.
Just another way for MS to steal ideas, patent them and then pocket all the profits.
On another note, I wonder what MS employees think about their employer opting to go outside the company for ideas rather then feed their employees families.
This very thought, the idea that the method of distribution could be gamed (much like the media) in an effort to guide/hijack public opinion, occurred to me as soon as I saw the article about Amazon deleting all the copies of "1984" from people's Kindles.
But my inherent cynicism (ironically/coincidentally, cynicism largely a product of my reading "1984") went a little further down the road with that idea.
Has anyone done comparisons of the actual text in the versions of a book on a Kindle with the text of print versions? Might the same "gaming" be taking place with the actual text contained in the book files? Could one of the many text-comparison apps out there check this?
It seems to me that it would be impossible to alter the text of dead-tree books, short of an inside job at the printers or publishers, but with digital files, the possibilities are much greater. What level of security exists on the servers these digital files, before distribution, are stored on? Could the people that appear to be gaming "best-seller" lists also be gaming the text? The questions pile up quickly.
Yeah, yeah. Tin-foil hat and all that. That's why I didn't bring it up until I saw the above post. I didn't know about the "best-seller" lists appearing imbalanced and possible gamed. My cynicism seems a little more, no...a lot more, justified now.
The writers, the people that paid them and the people that made the decisions that brought this about NEED to be prosecuted, not only for the fraud perpetrated here, but for the manslaughter of any women that died as a result of this therapy. Wyeth should lose their right to do business in this country as well.
Now I can see some writer saying "WTF? I just wrote an article!", but that does not excuse the fact they were ghost-writing in a MEDICAL journal. They would have to know that decisions that involve the lives and physical well-being of people are, to some extent, based on these journals and the articles within them.
You can't legislate morality, but you can most certainly prosecute for a lack of it.
Slashdot Mirror
Your kidding right?
That was ten years and 4 computers ago. You'll just have to imagine it. :)
I seem to recall an interview with Will Wright that mentioned that he was told that he was tasked with making a program to do exactly what you described, but to also test design efficiency of floor-plans. The end result became "The Sims". He was essentially tricked into making a game.
So no surprise that you ended up using it for exactly that, designing buildings.
Did you actually use the sims in the game to test floor-plan efficiency?
My best in-game friend letting me kill her over and over, then chop up her corpse(s) to supply me with body parts which were needed to take advantage of a bug that allowed you to place objects on the walls of a house.
It got to the point we were having to get creative to kill her as fast as possible. A pet White Wyrm turned out to be the best method. One Bite-Death. If he got hungry, I could feed him some of the body parts as well.
"Whoa! How'd you get all that stuff to hang on the wall?"
"You really want to know?"
Could we just stick to submitting stories about countries that DON'T want to censor the internet?
It would be a lot simpler.
I'm willing to venture that most of the readers here pretty much assume they all want to anyways...
Yeah, what gives?
I hope this guy (and the other people he credits on his page) make a stink about that. Most certainly a lot of funding involved in this, and falsely claiming credit is akin to stealing dude's Pop-Tarts right out of his toaster.
Is it possible such research can be happening along two parallel courses with no awareness of each other? I somehow find that hard to believe.
What? You think MS employees are unaware of the questionable practices of their employer?
They either agree with them, or they are willing to sell out for a buck. Either way, someone is pissing in their karma pool.
"I often wonder if people with different-shaped noses have the same problems I do, or if these problems are solved in the nose designs of other races."
There is evidence to suggest that may be the case.
http://www.drabruzzi.com/images/nose6.jpg
Imagine that. Integrated obsolescence disguised as a feature.
What ever will they think of next?
I'm curious. Does your compensation package include a replacement soul upon retirement?
We're not talking a bundled utility.
But I'm sure MS would MAKE it one just to screw the guy out of his 5% cut.
Fuck, I need to keep my mouth shut...MS is probably going to try and patent bundling (is that a word?), if they haven't already.
{waits for incoming link to prove me correct}
Ok, I got mod points, but damned if I couldn't figure out if I should mod this +1 Insightful or +1 Funny, for it is precisely both.
I had similar experiences (probably around the same time as you. Wasted many hours in that same fucking office) and came to the same conclusions, but others as well.
The biggest one was the idea that an invention may be a "better" idea, but make less money. I'll give an example from my own experiences.
I designed a lancet (a device that diabetics(among others) used to draw a drop of blood for glucose testing) that was self-contained, sterile, highly adaptable to need and INCREDIBLY cheap to make. It was also disposable, alleviating the need to keep an item around that could potentially infect other people. It had ONE moving part.
The company I worked for at the time manufactured the best-selling alternative at the time. I created a working prototype (on my own time, with my own materials, equipment) then brought it to work to try and sell the idea to them. Not interested in the slightest.
So I took the idea to the largest lancet distributor in the world (the company I worked for made their lancets, which they in turn sold under license). They wanted nothing to do with it. It took me a little while to figure out why.
They made more money selling a lancet with over 15 parts then they would selling one with only one moving part.
The exact same line of thinking is why cars now come with all the bells and whistles they do. If you increase the over-all cost of the product, you increase the over-all PROFIT derived from the product.
Needless to say, that was the end of my inventing days, for I have morals and I'm a firm believer in the idea of Karma.
So, the tech is a solution to MULTIPLE problems, across multiple disciplines. Now I get it.
"(and to me, deposition sounds like a 2-D process, with a very tediuous 3-D aspect)"
Yeah, that was my take on it as well, and my assumed application for the tech in question. A replacement for tech that wasn't very efficient. I just wasn't sure.
Hardly.
There is plenty of prior art, as the numerous posts in this thread have already shown. One of these students could modify the concept, include their own ideas and head to market.
And before you post a reply, think of all the times MS has done EXACTLY the same thing.
Most recent example(less then 24 hours old):
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/08/06/2322209
I understand that, but what I don't understand is the advantage this method has over current technology, i.e. carbon deposition techniques, etc. other then the replication factor.
Is the replication factor the sole advantage?
As ridiculous as your idea is, it got me thinking about something else.
Why the FUCK is MS doing this in Canada instead of the US? Do they have their lawyers investigating IP laws to determine what country has the weakest IP laws so that they may more easily take advantage of the situation? Would a Canadian have less chance of redress in OUR courts?
Did they choose a location close enough to Redmond to take advantage of the locals (Washingtonians), yet utilize cross-border loopholes that would prevent ANYONE seeking redress, even American citizens?
I'm missing the application.
Is the idea to create new structures WITHIN the human body(or whatever species, plant, animal, fungus...), or externally, such as another means to create nano-scale devices, but with bio-materials as opposed to non-biological components such as carbon molecules? Both?
It does make sense, either way, as DNA can be coded to self-replicate making any manufacturing processes far easier.
And yes, I am aware that biological entities are, for the most part, made of carbon molecules, at least here on Earth.
I wonder how many companies scour /. for ideas such as yours.
Well, it doesn't really apply to text as the keyboard would, but that is actually a really good idea.
My daughter uses a tablet for everything, including mundane tasks like web-surfing. Easier then switching between the two, I guess. Your idea would solve MY problem as well...sitting down at her machine and having to ask her where her mouse is.
To be honest, I think she would dump the tablet if she had a mouse such as the one you describe.
If "Contests" like this were actually trying to encourage rewarding students for the innovations (as opposed to simply exploiting them), why not give them a slice of the pie, say...5% of the profits generated?
I have YET to see a single "contest" that offered such a reward.
And while I'm on the subject, have you ever noticed that even the losers give up IP rights, so that if the student improves on the idea after the fact, it still belongs to the company sponsoring the "contest", with NO rewards at all? One more aspect that points to the real motives of the sponsors.
Parent was the fastest "+4 Funny" to "-0 Troll" to "fucking gone" post moderation I've ever seen on /.
What a waste of mod points.
Right.
You're probably correct. Their employees more then likely already realize MS will patent the ideas REGARDLESS, and steal them anyways, so whats the difference, right?
How about the students sit on their ideas and market them when the keyboard comes out?
Should be worth more then a lousy $2000, especially considering the fact that the students will have NO intellectual property rights once they submit through the contest.
Just another way for MS to steal ideas, patent them and then pocket all the profits.
On another note, I wonder what MS employees think about their employer opting to go outside the company for ideas rather then feed their employees families.
"plurality should not be posited without necessity."
I agree. But do those that have the means of doing such as I described in my post know that?
We have both the CIA and the NSA. Four branches of military that these days are pretty much redundant in many ways.
Hell, Warcraft and Starcraft from the same publisher.
Occam's Razor is an interesting principle, but unless your aware of it, and consider it, it is kind of moot.
This very thought, the idea that the method of distribution could be gamed (much like the media) in an effort to guide/hijack public opinion, occurred to me as soon as I saw the article about Amazon deleting all the copies of "1984" from people's Kindles.
But my inherent cynicism (ironically/coincidentally, cynicism largely a product of my reading "1984") went a little further down the road with that idea.
Has anyone done comparisons of the actual text in the versions of a book on a Kindle with the text of print versions? Might the same "gaming" be taking place with the actual text contained in the book files? Could one of the many text-comparison apps out there check this?
It seems to me that it would be impossible to alter the text of dead-tree books, short of an inside job at the printers or publishers, but with digital files, the possibilities are much greater. What level of security exists on the servers these digital files, before distribution, are stored on? Could the people that appear to be gaming "best-seller" lists also be gaming the text? The questions pile up quickly.
Yeah, yeah. Tin-foil hat and all that. That's why I didn't bring it up until I saw the above post. I didn't know about the "best-seller" lists appearing imbalanced and possible gamed. My cynicism seems a little more, no...a lot more, justified now.
The writers, the people that paid them and the people that made the decisions that brought this about NEED to be prosecuted, not only for the fraud perpetrated here, but for the manslaughter of any women that died as a result of this therapy. Wyeth should lose their right to do business in this country as well.
Now I can see some writer saying "WTF? I just wrote an article!", but that does not excuse the fact they were ghost-writing in a MEDICAL journal. They would have to know that decisions that involve the lives and physical well-being of people are, to some extent, based on these journals and the articles within them.
You can't legislate morality, but you can most certainly prosecute for a lack of it.