You need to find out what the real requirements are. That thing from your boss is just a list of every language/environment feature and buzzword he has ever heard.
However, I found a link to some offical looking Taiwanese web site that said they had amemded their law to match Berne, so what while they aren't actually members, they do follow Berne.
I can't find this link again, so can't double check.
On the other hand, movie technology is advancing rapidly. Take a look at the short film duality. (divx version available from divx.com).
That movie was made mostly by two guys. Total crew for everything was around 8. They used good consumer level equipment. Editing and special effects were done on Macs using about $2000 worth of software. It's only their second attempt at a movie, too.
And guess what? Duality looks as good as anything in the original Star Wars.
I think we are entering a phase where the resources required to make a top notch movie with full special effects are going to go way down. So maybe it is true that it won't be possible to get a $200 million budget for a major movie...but I don't think anyone will need a $200 million budget anymore.
I have serious doubts about this. Taiwan follows the Berne Convention on copyright. One of the the requirements of Berne is that you cannot require formalities such as registration.
You are allowed to apply different rules to your own citizens and their works. For example, the United States does have registration requirements that must be met if you want to sue for certain kinds of damages. If a US author doesn't register, their remedies are limited. If a foreign author doesn't register, they aren't limited. Yup...US law actually treats foreign authors better than US authors (and if you are going to pirate...pirate domestically!).
What's probably happening, assuming that there is a grain of truth to this story, is that Taiwan is doing what the US does, and subjecting their own people to extra requirements. So, it is believable that a movie made in Taiwan that is shown and not registered does not get copyright, but it is certainly not true for foreign (to Taiwan) movies.
That's how the integrated DTV PVR's work, too. UltimateTV gets everything from the satellite. Phone line is optional. DirecTivo still gets upgrades off the phone and, I think, some guide information, so you need a phone (hell, they set the clock from the phone!), but they are moving more to the satellite.
One day in APh 23 (the introductory optics class) at Caltech, the professor announced it was time to measure the speed of light, and pulled a ruler out of his pocket. The class laughed.
He then turned on a laser of known wavelength, and reflected the beam off the ruler onto the chalkboard. The ruler had raised lines every 1/16th of an inch, and this made it basically act as a diffraction grating, and there was a clear diffraction pattern on the chalkboard. He marked off the pattern on the chalkboard with chalk, then took the ruler and measured the distance between the lines on the diffraction pattern. Then, still using the ruler, he measured the distance to where he had held the ruler.
A quick calculation later, and he had the speed of light.
I'm not sure that this was fully legitimate, because I can't think of a way to know the wavelength of the laser that doesn't involve already knowing the speed of light, but it was interesting nonetheless.
Speaking of interesting things to do with interference patterns, that professor did some work at Hughes on an optical weapon system. It had an array of radiators. Turn them all on, and you get a classic interference pattern, so you get a strong lobe in one direction, and not enough radiation in other directions to harm anything. The cool part was how it was aimed.
You aimed the main lobe by playing with the phase of the various radiators, so you didn't have to move things around to do fine aiming.
Here's the cool part. They used a feedback system. The modulated the phase of each radiator with a sine wave, using a different frequency for each radiator. They'd point a sensor at the target, and look for variations in the intensity of the reflection. If a particular radiator was at a phase that was contributing toward putting the max lobe on the target, there would be a weak variation in the reflection at the frequency of the sine wave they were modulating that radiator with (if the radiator is at the right phase, you are near a peak, and small variations from the modulation don't lose much). If a particular radiator's phase was way off, you'd get a strong single at the frequency of the modulation.
So, they could simply do a fourier analysis of the reflection, and see what radiators needed their phase adjusted to hit the target.
The professor had a film of a test, with a small number of radiators. They were all pointing at a black background, and you saw a kind of vague shifting light pattern. Then someone tossed a small metal model of the starship Enterprise in, and blam!, the phases were adjusted in a millisecond or so, and that thing lit up. It was very cool.
Perhaps it's the other way around. I've seen the trailer for Goldmember...and it does not look good. I'd guess they don't want any name similar to Goldfinger to be associated with anything that sucks.
99% of Linux software is open source now, but that's just because desktop Linux use is small enough to not attract closed source developers.
If Linux ever got up to Windows levels (or, more realistically, Mac levels), there would be many closed source apps, and so plenty of opportunity for spyware.
There are more than power problems to worry about with a long running process. There are other hardware failures, scheduled downtime, and system crashes to contend with. Just becuase in this instance it was a power failure that made him wish he had this ability doesn't mean it wouldn't be useful in other circumstances.
This whoel subject is completely stupid. What if I have roommates who all use one computer via serial terminals? NCD terminals? That isn't NAT because I only have one host, but dozens of people can use those services via getty or X11. So WTF is the difference?
The difference is that the number of people who have roommates with serial terminals is insignificant.
This paragraph was passed specifically to reject copyright owners' "Copying the program into RAM is infringing; therefore, EULAs are binding" argument.
Not really...in fact, it was specifically worded ("owner of a particular copy") so as to not apply if a EULA was in force. The original versions did not have that "owner" language, and it was added before passage because Congress recognized that some companies want to license rather than sell software, and did not want 17 USC 117 to override license terms.
Perhaps these laws of thermodynamics are only valid within a particular context, and the free energy comes from outside that context?
The context in which conservation of energy is valid is a universe in which the laws of physics are symetrical with respect to time. (Conservation of momentum is a consequence of symetry under translation, and conservation of angular momentum comes from rotational symetry).
Since there has never been even a hint that these symetries don't hold in our universe, anything that claims to violate conservation of energy (or momentum, or angular momentum) is extremely unlikely.
It's more complicated than that. The DirecTivo units had two tuners from the start, so had the hardware to record two shows at once, but the software did not initially support it. They didn't update the software to support it until after UltimateTV was out for a while and heavily pushing their ability to record two shows at once.
All correct, of course, and nicely demonstrating my point that "you can't get out because you can't go faster than light" has little to do with it. Basically, the escape velocity being greater or equal to lightspeed is a consequence of why you can't get out, not a cause.
You keep mixing up velocity and acceleration. The fundamental mistake you keep making is that you are assuming that the only way to go from point A to point B is ballistically.
Thought experiment for you: take an object and start moving it upwards at 10 miles/hour (it can be a rocket with a large fuel supply, or you can supply energy from the ground, e.g., with a launching laser). Keep supplying enough force to keep the object moving away from earth at 10 miles/hour.
Question: what happens to this object?
Answer: it gets arbitrarily far away from earth. After a year, for example, it is about as far away as the moon.
What this demonstrates: you don't need to reach escape velocity to get out of a gravity well.
Yeah, that's the physics geek explanation. When I posed this question to one of my physics professors at Caltech back in my student days, he came up with nothing better than that, either. Basically, as far as we could tell, (1) the "escape velocity is greater than speed of light, and nothing can go faster than light" explanation has nothing really to do with it, and (2) there is no simple intuitive explanation of why you can't get out of a black hole (where "simple intuitive" means comparable to the escape velocity explanation).
This reminds me of the explanations in books for the general public on how airplanes work. The usual explanation is that because of the curve on top of the wing, when the airflow splits at the leading edge, the part that goes over the top has to go farther to meet up with the corresponding part that goes under the wing, and since it has to go farther in the same time, it has to go faster. We know from Bernoulli that a faster airflow has lower pressure, so we get a pressure differential, and the wing rises.
Anyone see the problem with that? The first problem is that no reason is given for the airstream over the top to have to meet up with the airstreem under the bottom. Why can't it just flow straight back?
The real reason wings work is that they cause vortices to be generated that, because of the shape of the wing, go down, and since vortices have momentum, by the usual laws of elementary physics, there is force upward on the wing.
There is no simple explanation of why wings cause these vortices, but no one likes to say in their books for laymen that it takes a PhD in aerodynamics to understand how airplanes work, so we get the totally irrelevant Bernoulli explanation.
It would be interesting to compile a list of various areas in science and engineering where there are explanations for the general public like this, that are basically wrong, and are so widespread that even scientists and engineers use them without thinking about them when writing for the general public.
You missed the point. A rocket can leave earth, for example, without ever reaching earth's escape velocity, because it has thrust, whereas a bullet would need to be fired at escape velocity or higher to leave earth. Heck, you could leave earth without ever going faster than 1 mile/hour, as long as you had enough fuel.
All a "black hole" means is that the mass of the object is so great that the escape velocity exceeds the speed of light. Nothing can go faster than light, so you'd never make it out of such a place
I've never understood this. Escape velocity is the velocity you need to get out frem a given point in a gravity well with no thrust. Can anyone give a good intuitive explanation of why a rocket could not get out of a black hole?
Since the possible moveset increases exponetially every turn, calculating the whole game can take much longer than a minute in many cases
Calculating the whole game would take, on average, a few dozen orders of magnitude longer than the expected life of the universe, using current computers, so I'd call "much longer than a minute" a rather large understatement.
Yes, I've noticed something similar. XP on my 900 MHz Athlon is noticably snappier than Linux with KDE or Gnome on my 1200 MHz Athlon. Much of this is that XP simply caches the heck out of everything in sight. Simple, but very effective.
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Why do you bother commenting when you didn't even read the article?
Interfaces are a subset of multiple inheritance, so they cannot be more powerfull.
You need to find out what the real requirements are. That thing from your boss is just a list of every language/environment feature and buzzword he has ever heard.
Try this article by Bertrand Meyer.
No, it's not what's underneath that counts. It what comes out that counts.
I can't find this link again, so can't double check.
That movie was made mostly by two guys. Total crew for everything was around 8. They used good consumer level equipment. Editing and special effects were done on Macs using about $2000 worth of software. It's only their second attempt at a movie, too.
And guess what? Duality looks as good as anything in the original Star Wars.
I think we are entering a phase where the resources required to make a top notch movie with full special effects are going to go way down. So maybe it is true that it won't be possible to get a $200 million budget for a major movie...but I don't think anyone will need a $200 million budget anymore.
You are allowed to apply different rules to your own citizens and their works. For example, the United States does have registration requirements that must be met if you want to sue for certain kinds of damages. If a US author doesn't register, their remedies are limited. If a foreign author doesn't register, they aren't limited. Yup...US law actually treats foreign authors better than US authors (and if you are going to pirate...pirate domestically!).
What's probably happening, assuming that there is a grain of truth to this story, is that Taiwan is doing what the US does, and subjecting their own people to extra requirements. So, it is believable that a movie made in Taiwan that is shown and not registered does not get copyright, but it is certainly not true for foreign (to Taiwan) movies.
That's how the integrated DTV PVR's work, too. UltimateTV gets everything from the satellite. Phone line is optional. DirecTivo still gets upgrades off the phone and, I think, some guide information, so you need a phone (hell, they set the clock from the phone!), but they are moving more to the satellite.
He then turned on a laser of known wavelength, and reflected the beam off the ruler onto the chalkboard. The ruler had raised lines every 1/16th of an inch, and this made it basically act as a diffraction grating, and there was a clear diffraction pattern on the chalkboard. He marked off the pattern on the chalkboard with chalk, then took the ruler and measured the distance between the lines on the diffraction pattern. Then, still using the ruler, he measured the distance to where he had held the ruler.
A quick calculation later, and he had the speed of light.
I'm not sure that this was fully legitimate, because I can't think of a way to know the wavelength of the laser that doesn't involve already knowing the speed of light, but it was interesting nonetheless.
Speaking of interesting things to do with interference patterns, that professor did some work at Hughes on an optical weapon system. It had an array of radiators. Turn them all on, and you get a classic interference pattern, so you get a strong lobe in one direction, and not enough radiation in other directions to harm anything. The cool part was how it was aimed.
You aimed the main lobe by playing with the phase of the various radiators, so you didn't have to move things around to do fine aiming.
Here's the cool part. They used a feedback system. The modulated the phase of each radiator with a sine wave, using a different frequency for each radiator. They'd point a sensor at the target, and look for variations in the intensity of the reflection. If a particular radiator was at a phase that was contributing toward putting the max lobe on the target, there would be a weak variation in the reflection at the frequency of the sine wave they were modulating that radiator with (if the radiator is at the right phase, you are near a peak, and small variations from the modulation don't lose much). If a particular radiator's phase was way off, you'd get a strong single at the frequency of the modulation.
So, they could simply do a fourier analysis of the reflection, and see what radiators needed their phase adjusted to hit the target.
The professor had a film of a test, with a small number of radiators. They were all pointing at a black background, and you saw a kind of vague shifting light pattern. Then someone tossed a small metal model of the starship Enterprise in, and blam!, the phases were adjusted in a millisecond or so, and that thing lit up. It was very cool.
Perhaps it's the other way around. I've seen the trailer for Goldmember...and it does not look good. I'd guess they don't want any name similar to Goldfinger to be associated with anything that sucks.
If Linux ever got up to Windows levels (or, more realistically, Mac levels), there would be many closed source apps, and so plenty of opportunity for spyware.
There are more than power problems to worry about with a long running process. There are other hardware failures, scheduled downtime, and system crashes to contend with. Just becuase in this instance it was a power failure that made him wish he had this ability doesn't mean it wouldn't be useful in other circumstances.
The difference is that the number of people who have roommates with serial terminals is insignificant.
Not really...in fact, it was specifically worded ("owner of a particular copy") so as to not apply if a EULA was in force. The original versions did not have that "owner" language, and it was added before passage because Congress recognized that some companies want to license rather than sell software, and did not want 17 USC 117 to override license terms.
The context in which conservation of energy is valid is a universe in which the laws of physics are symetrical with respect to time. (Conservation of momentum is a consequence of symetry under translation, and conservation of angular momentum comes from rotational symetry).
Since there has never been even a hint that these symetries don't hold in our universe, anything that claims to violate conservation of energy (or momentum, or angular momentum) is extremely unlikely.
It's more complicated than that. The DirecTivo units had two tuners from the start, so had the hardware to record two shows at once, but the software did not initially support it. They didn't update the software to support it until after UltimateTV was out for a while and heavily pushing their ability to record two shows at once.
All correct, of course, and nicely demonstrating my point that "you can't get out because you can't go faster than light" has little to do with it. Basically, the escape velocity being greater or equal to lightspeed is a consequence of why you can't get out, not a cause.
You keep mixing up velocity and acceleration. The fundamental mistake you keep making is that you are assuming that the only way to go from point A to point B is ballistically.
Question: what happens to this object?
Answer: it gets arbitrarily far away from earth. After a year, for example, it is about as far away as the moon.
What this demonstrates: you don't need to reach escape velocity to get out of a gravity well.
This reminds me of the explanations in books for the general public on how airplanes work. The usual explanation is that because of the curve on top of the wing, when the airflow splits at the leading edge, the part that goes over the top has to go farther to meet up with the corresponding part that goes under the wing, and since it has to go farther in the same time, it has to go faster. We know from Bernoulli that a faster airflow has lower pressure, so we get a pressure differential, and the wing rises.
Anyone see the problem with that? The first problem is that no reason is given for the airstream over the top to have to meet up with the airstreem under the bottom. Why can't it just flow straight back?
The real reason wings work is that they cause vortices to be generated that, because of the shape of the wing, go down, and since vortices have momentum, by the usual laws of elementary physics, there is force upward on the wing.
There is no simple explanation of why wings cause these vortices, but no one likes to say in their books for laymen that it takes a PhD in aerodynamics to understand how airplanes work, so we get the totally irrelevant Bernoulli explanation.
It would be interesting to compile a list of various areas in science and engineering where there are explanations for the general public like this, that are basically wrong, and are so widespread that even scientists and engineers use them without thinking about them when writing for the general public.
Try again.
I've never understood this. Escape velocity is the velocity you need to get out frem a given point in a gravity well with no thrust. Can anyone give a good intuitive explanation of why a rocket could not get out of a black hole?
Calculating the whole game would take, on average, a few dozen orders of magnitude longer than the expected life of the universe, using current computers, so I'd call "much longer than a minute" a rather large understatement.
Yes, I've noticed something similar. XP on my 900 MHz Athlon is noticably snappier than Linux with KDE or Gnome on my 1200 MHz Athlon. Much of this is that XP simply caches the heck out of everything in sight. Simple, but very effective.