When you take someone to court with a patent that will not hold up, not only is there patent tossed out, but there are penalties. The other party will also counter sue and make the holder of the bogus patent pay dearly.
I remember reading somewhere it's like 5x damages and expenses or something like that written into the law, just to make it risky to actually take people to court frivolously.
But what you miss is many lawyers are playing poker and not law.
By this I mean they will intimidate people into paying just so they can avoid a fight, but in practice they can't afford a fight any more then the other guy, maybe even more so. Just ignoring them, or counter bluffing probably wouldn't have any repercussions.
But you never know what cards they may be holding.
The problem is the Engineer's mentality. I know because I used to have it, and still do to a point. I have also had many partners with it.
They always play devils advocate, asking what's the worst cast scenario, how can I over engineer to make sure my bridge will not collapse, or my power supply will not burn down someone's house. Overly cautious.
But in law, and business and business law matters, a totally different approach is needed.
It's about Risk management, the risk reward tradeoffs, Poker, social interactions, and BALLS.
Most engineers panic with any legal things, always assume worst case, and constantly keep putting rules and boundaries where there really aren't any. (Thinking in the BOX) and making the box ever smaller.
"Oh is has to be done like this", or "you can't do that", "the law says this or that".
Well The Laws are only 1/3 of the legal story, Case precedence another large part. What did the courts rule in similar cases? How are these cases handled?
But most important are what are the practical reality of a given situations. Can these guys afford to sue, Can you stall the legal actions in the courts for 20 years till the guy keels over dead from old age. Can you even collect if you win?
I have come to find that many of these "business Guys" will blatantly cross a line. It's only the ones that do this as their full time MO for years before it will catch up with them.
In practice, it's like running a red light; it's only illegal if the cop see you. The differnece is police usualy have time, where District Attorneys are overwhelmed and can only go after the top 10% of what's out there, and only when everything is laid out simple even a five year old can what took place.
So if we had a race, the real business guys will cautiously run the lights, where the engineers wait till the light is completely green. The engineers will almost always loose the race.
I recently had a corporation in California. We had a business guy whom we gave a few shares to about two years into our startup, under 25%.
About a year later realizing that most of us in this venture after 3 years were low in cash, he just decided the company was his.
He closed down the office, took all the contracts, papers, and hardware home with him.
He had secretly filed papers with the state listing him as the sole owner and just deleted us like were never there.
GoDaddy even took the Domain and web site from me! (it was in my name)
And started to present my Inventions (patent pending) to Sun, HP and Intel as well as many investors without us!
We talked to the state, they just file corporate shareholder and offer filings, there is no verification or even protection from Fraud. This means in I could just file papers claiming I own Intel! The State would mindlessly file this, no questions asked. It's up to the courts to clean up any problems that my arise.
Of course someone like Intel would send hordes of Lawyers at
I don't know much about the origins of the JPEG algorythem, although I am very familiar with how it works.
I spent about an a hour reading though that patent filed in 1987. It really explains a lot of things in detail that are almost identical to how JPEG does it.
The language they use is a bit off like talking about Runlengths a lot.
Anyhow unless there is some prior art, they may have this one fair and square.
As for all those out there that believe all software and inventions should be free, It destroys all point in an inventor struggling to do something revolutionary.
Benjamin Franklin one of our nations founders and a brilliant inventor, came up with the idea of protecting copyright and patents (Intellectual Property). Before him these thing didn't hold any value.
I just read that Color Bubble story on Slashdot here, that how the Guy spent 10 years to come up with a surfactant and Dye. He make a substancial inventment of time and money because the was the possiblity of large financial reward.
Without Patents we would be in Mexico, China, India, or Russia where there just isn't anywhere near as much innovation.
I haven't seen the patent first hand, but often something obvious now, wasn't at that time. If it were then why wasn't someone else doing it already.
I can list many examples of this. The mouse, keyboard, screens, printers, windowing environment, The Internet, an Operating system and even a CPU and the IC chips, were at the time major conceptual steps forward.
I can't tell you how hard it was to explain what the Internet or even a Network was to people in 1983, they just couldn't grasp it.
With patents if someone has been doing something then a patent gets filed by another person at later date, then the group getting sued must try to show that, if they can the patent holder will have to pay like multiple damages and costs.
So as a patent holder you never want to go to court with a weak patent.
But in practice, most people loose their nerve at the first letter from a patent holder, even if its a weak patent that wouldn't hold up.
As a result many people end up paying royalties or giving up without a fight, when they really would win and have that patent tossed out.
I have come to realize much of patent law is a poker game.
For a large company like Microsoft they look at the strength of a patent and the value of the company holding it and decide is it cheaper to pay or infringe. And same in reverse, even if a patent isn't worth the paper it's written on, if the company they sue can't afford to challenge it, then they win.
AT&T did this to many companies they felt were competition, file dozens of bogus suite against one company, from many little companies they control, and drive the small players out of business while leaving there name out of it.
From site:
What is ALON(TM) Optical Ceramic?
ALON is a patented optical, polycrystalline ceramic with a grain size of 80 m to 250 m.
ALON has optical, mechanical and physical properties very similar to sapphire.
ALON can be made in more complex shapes, larger sizes, and at lower costs than sapphire
Chemical Name: Aluminum Oxynitride This is similar to Aluminum Oxide also known as Sapphire (Al2O3) and Alumina which is also Al2O3
I would imagine a Diamond like Carbon crystal would have an even higher thermal conductivity and at the same time be even more durable and harder.
At the time, some 10 years ago, we found some un-labeled metalic packaged high powered IR devices at Haltek in Silicon Vally. Haltek went out of bussiness years ago.
We also had a 1 watt IR laser diode we came across that was totaly amazing. It also worked for this purpose. If the surplus shop knew what is was it would have been out of our price range.
Some time back they had a self cooling soda can too.
My favorate reaction for something like this is Ferric chloride on aluminum, It gets hot enough to ignite paper almost instantly. But very quickly neutralizes the reaction. This way traditional Aluminum can technology could be used, rather then something exotic. But maybe the whole things needs to be FDA approved and edable...
If it is, it's because of changing social attitudes.
There are many causes, but here are some.
1.) There is a rush of quasi-technical people. They are not really good at it, but get there degree's and get into it technical fields just for the money. They are making is harder for natural born technical people to succeed.
2.) Investors tend put money in to these quasi-technical people, and not the Tesla's and Edison's. True innovation doens't come from Academics, that system screens out non-conformists.
3.) Many Investors can't tell the scam artist from the real people anymore. (see dot.com boom)
4.) Society goes in Cycles.
a.) War bring innovation, peace bring stagnation.
b.) But also change too quickly tends to bring on a strong backlash, where all the new is rejected. Just look as Christian fundamentalist, Taliban or any extreme religious groups these days.
5.) The torch may be moving again. By this I mean the eternal flame of innovation keeps moving. During the change things slow. It was in China thousands of years ago, Greece, The Roman Empire, England during the Industrial Revolution, and now in the US. But already some is going to India, and Taiwan.
Where will it move to next, once the US society/government chases it off?
I mean it's getting too expensive here, also there is a constant ridicule of new things these days, a resistance to really new ideas and innovation beyond the next generation of cars, or mp3 players. Hell, Ma Bell held the Internet back for 20+ years (It couldn't blossom till the AT&T breakup). Now stem cell research and cloning is being blocked here. And chips manufacturing is all overseas because of chemical and pollution concerns. Even general medicine has ground to a halt here in the US from lawsuits, fat profits from the government protected drug companies and insurance companies.
The authors of dictionaries have learning a long time ago they don't dictate the language but they have keep up with it.
Language evolves with the group that uses it. In a sense many words and phrasing are changing to allow improved communication within that group, this is the natural way it's supposed to work. So in a sense "Proper English" is less clear, or more cumbersome then the new uses of the language. Just as Shakespeare's English, Beowulf, or the Queens English would be nearly impossible to have a simple technical conversion with.
Some how the English teacher set feels the opposite. Like they should dictate the language. This is why Esperanto worked so well (it's useless) since I didn't evolve on it's own. It is as if all the biologists were to dictate how organisms should be and attempt to exterminate any new species encountered, or attempt to keep alive the ones that no longer can survive on there own. Or how the church dictated the laws of physics and anyone who discovered something that didn't agree was rejected or worse, killed.
I just get Regular Parallel ATA drives, or put them in a USB drive case.
I just bought 4 x 160Gb Hard Drives at $61 each! for this very purpose.
Backup to the drive then unplug and put pack in the Anti Static bags. I don't bother bolting the drive down, I just leave the computer open with the drive dangling out.
The reason this is better any other solution I have tried, is because I have data dating back to 1976 on media, and after going through 7 or more itteration where the old tape drive hardware is lost or stops working and is no longer available. Or the tapes get gummy and sticky.
It's a nightmare. I spent almost a month backing out 9 track tape at differnet BPI's and 1/2 and 1/4 tape formats, 4mm Dat drives, 8mm, etc.
So far the best media has been CD, and DVD-Roms, although today they are too small to be useful. The new Optical disks are not a popular standard like CD ensuring you will be able to read the data back at some point in the future.
Next has been the SCSI and IDE/ATA drives. These have been excelllent in the respect of backward compatablity and being able to read data from computers I had from 15 or more years ago. Heck I have even managed in fire up old SCSI drives from 20 years ago and read the data off it reciently. A 10 Mb SCSI drive I remember thinking $60 a meg was a great deal.
The next largest issue is, will the drive even still spin up.
I recomend keeping multiple copys for that. Luckily my constant upgraging and copy the data to the new drive solved of that. There are also data recovery services that are excellent with dead drives at about $500 to $1500.
Somehow I have managed to keep almost every bit since 1980 still in my possession. And readily accessable.
Heck I can even run some of my old TRS80 Model1 code from 1979 and C64 stuff on emulators.
One of my friend approached me with this Idea back in 2000 and it's was so grotesque, that I designed an entire silent computer based on thermal Conduction.
The design can handle over 300 watts 3.X P4 cpu at full load, + drive + graphics cards and operate at near room temperature.
Just aluminum, drive is in 1" thick thermally conductive Silicon Rubber. (I added stuff to make it conduct heat)
Mineral Oil is just a bad idea. Even in my Aluminum design I have so much criticism about how hard is it to work on, get the parts etc. It's actually easier, but people just can't handle different then the status Quo.
Anyhow A companie was formed http://www.nisvara.com/, never went anywhere in 3 years. We had interest from everyone one though, even free offices from NASA Ames.
But your science has also evolved to become the new Religion. With it's faith based beliefs, martyrs, heretics and high priests (academia).
How is the current academic scientific establishment any different then the papacy? When anyone who speaks out against popular belief is persecuted and punished? Eric Laithwaite, Nicola Tesla & Timothy Leary for examples.
The current crop of students and academics are just a closed minded as Catholics, just as territorial, and in the end follow the rules of any bureaucracy which is to self perpetuate.
Which is what fuels this ridiculous evolution debate. How is it, do you think the scientific "religion" will have any more truth then Christians for example? At least christants believe in being good to other people. Witch doctor in the rainforests have had medicins and knowhow far beyond ours for years, and only after we have completely discredited them, do we come back and see what brews they were mixing up only to find many wonder drugs.
The current scientific establishment pushes so may fallacies, because it fits in as part of the government's propaganda, or some other powerful groups interests. How is this any different then medieval times when rich lords would sponsor religion or science to father there own goals. (take the tobacco industry for example,or the pharmaceutical industry, how about pesticides vs. organic farming)
In the end, we are all arrogant humans that somehow think our beliefs and debates actually have some significant. That somehow this "means something".
Even if we are "artificaly selecting" things, We are still part of Nature. Our selections are part of natural selection.
I call is the selection criterial. And one of the things about evolution in any area(biology, GA, or memes) is just because we can't "with our brains" see any sense, it doesn't mean it's not there.
We often see only what we are looking for or want to see. And quite often there are things we really don't want to see, and our brains will deliberatly not let us see some of these things.
Well until you can explain Evolution and Quantum physics, I think Magic Pixie's sound just as plausable as anything else I have heard explained. After all string theory is more faith based then most religions.
Anyhow if you read throught the teaching of Budda, Koran, Bhava Gita, Bible and Tora, there are no major conflicts if you define God as the sum of all things. (everything in the Universe, and what ever else may exist) So in that point of view, god would have created evolution also.
Besides, Is is better to believe in God and be wrong, or to not believe in God and be wrong....
Has anyone ever stopped to think about how well evolution works? And that it's all encompassing.
It's an inescapable law of nature. Everything from our software and computer designs (meme's) to music, language and DNA based life is affected by evolution.
Not only that, it's impossible to create something not effected by it. Even our views of God and our religions evolve. (what blasphemy)
After studying evolution for some time, I became a believer in GOD! Because only god could have created something as powerful as evolution.
My argument goes like this. If we are made in Gods image, and we make machines and tools to build more complex things. Then shouldn't God also? If God were to what would that tool look like. EVOLUTION....
So all this arguing over GOD vs. Evolution is totally stupid. No Evil.
I see science as the study of God's creation. It's sort of our responsibility to understand is and in doing this we can come to know God better
Root has full authority over the system. Root programs that are exploited also do.
The idea was/is to make it impossible for a user to become root without going through the proper mechanisms. (su, setuid, group wheel, etc...)
In the OLD SCHOOL days it was an open challenge to see if a user account (student account) could even crash the system or get root access. Few would succeed. This was then there would only be 1 or maybe 2 computers on the whole school campus. Pre-networking days.
Something us SVR4 and BSD folks understood, but the many Linux guys totaly miss the point of why we do things a certain way.
So if a user account or program is comprimized is like on a ship with water tight bulk heads and steel hatches that lock shut, preventing the whole ship from flooding and sinking.
If a user account become compromized, as root you can still get in and fix it, completely!
If root is compromized, you probably can even get in, or tell if you've been compromized. This is really bad when you don't have physical access to the BOX. Like when it's 10,000 miles away. ( I have actualy been on boxes, as a hacker as well as root, when my adversary was on at the same time )
In a partly compromized box, as the hacker that had gained a user account, one can not fix up logs (*to cover ones tracks*), is restricted to IP port services above 1000. (this is why we use 8080). Can not add NEW IP address, send Raw packets (spoofing), or sniff the network.
They can not alter other users account. So if a web CGI get compromized they can't tag the SITE!!.
I can go on and on, but I hope you get the point. Root and USER accounts exist for some very good reasons. Layered security.
But it only works when you make your OS correctly. ( see FreeBSD, or OpenBSD for an example )
This was in 1994. I could find anything in NYC to live in for under $2500 (near 1st and 49th st. ) I know there were better deals, but without knowing the right people, I had to pay a broker $10K just to find out about the apartments.
Parking the car was another $450 a month! (folks live in NJ so I needed a car)
Anyhow , How can you afford an OC house on $3500, they are starting at $600K now. (I'm in DownTown LA now). I don't know but even with my $10K a month take home I still have a hard time buying a house. But I am scared stiff to get a variable rate / interest only loan, because if intrest rates rise, or prices fall, your SOL.
Maybe I just like to spend too much on computers. HDTV cameras and other hardware cost dearly too.
I moved out there from the Bay area 10 years ago.
I was getting 150K yr, but found 68% of my income went to taxes!
The City tax was higher then my federal!
My take home after everything was $3500 a month. I couldn't make ends meet and all in all lost over $30K in the move there and move back + the operating at a loss the whole time I was there.
With this new tax rull people who commute from New Jersey would end up paying taxes to two states!
I have alway stated they need to masquerade as some other protocols.
I have been doing video streaming for 14 years now and it's always need necessary to look like http or ftp or some other protocol to get my Livecam streaming video past firewalls and other obstacles.
With my ECIP/SPAck it's been the same way. I have even had IETF members swear to official to block my packets at the backbone level.
The original Drawing that started it was: http://www.unixprogram.com/images/img3.jpg With these little creatures running around doing things in the computer. IE: Daemons not demons.
Here is my proposal for a new Logo: http://www.unixprogram.com/images/daemonett e.jpg
Just for a hoot check out this one: http://www.unixprogram.com/churchofbsd/
Slashdot Mirror
Take a look at the real patent system,
When you take someone to court with a patent that will not hold up, not only is there patent tossed out, but there are penalties. The other party will also counter sue and make the holder of the bogus patent pay dearly.
I remember reading somewhere it's like 5x damages and expenses or something like that written into the law, just to make it risky to actually take people to court frivolously.
But what you miss is many lawyers are playing poker and not law.
By this I mean they will intimidate people into paying just so they can avoid a fight, but in practice they can't afford a fight any more then the other guy, maybe even more so. Just ignoring them, or counter bluffing probably wouldn't have any repercussions.
But you never know what cards they may be holding.
The problem is the Engineer's mentality. I know because I used to have it, and still do to a point. I have also had many partners with it.
They always play devils advocate, asking what's the worst cast scenario, how can I over engineer to make sure my bridge will not collapse, or my power supply will not burn down someone's house. Overly cautious.
But in law, and business and business law matters, a totally different approach is needed.
It's about Risk management, the risk reward tradeoffs, Poker, social interactions, and BALLS.
Most engineers panic with any legal things, always assume worst case, and constantly keep putting rules and boundaries where there really aren't any. (Thinking in the BOX) and making the box ever smaller.
"Oh is has to be done like this", or "you can't do that", "the law says this or that".
Well The Laws are only 1/3 of the legal story, Case precedence another large part. What did the courts rule in similar cases? How are these cases handled?
But most important are what are the practical reality of a given situations. Can these guys afford to sue, Can you stall the legal actions in the courts for 20 years till the guy keels over dead from old age. Can you even collect if you win?
I have come to find that many of these "business Guys" will blatantly cross a line. It's only the ones that do this as their full time MO for years before it will catch up with them.
In practice, it's like running a red light; it's only illegal if the cop see you. The differnece is police usualy have time, where District Attorneys are overwhelmed and can only go after the top 10% of what's out there, and only when everything is laid out simple even a five year old can what took place.
So if we had a race, the real business guys will cautiously run the lights, where the engineers wait till the light is completely green. The engineers will almost always loose the race.
I recently had a corporation in California. We had a business guy whom we gave a few shares to about two years into our startup, under 25%.
About a year later realizing that most of us in this venture after 3 years were low in cash, he just decided the company was his.
He closed down the office, took all the contracts, papers, and hardware home with him.
He had secretly filed papers with the state listing him as the sole owner and just deleted us like were never there.
GoDaddy even took the Domain and web site from me! (it was in my name)
And started to present my Inventions (patent pending) to Sun, HP and Intel as well as many investors without us!
We talked to the state, they just file corporate shareholder and offer filings, there is no verification or even protection from Fraud. This means in I could just file papers claiming I own Intel! The State would mindlessly file this, no questions asked. It's up to the courts to clean up any problems that my arise.
Of course someone like Intel would send hordes of Lawyers at
I don't know much about the origins of the JPEG algorythem, although I am very familiar with how it works.
I spent about an a hour reading though that patent filed in 1987. It really explains a lot of things in detail that are almost identical to how JPEG does it.
The language they use is a bit off like talking about Runlengths a lot.
Anyhow unless there is some prior art, they may have this one fair and square.
As for all those out there that believe all software and inventions should be free, It destroys all point in an inventor struggling to do something revolutionary.
Benjamin Franklin one of our nations founders and a brilliant inventor, came up with the idea of protecting copyright and patents (Intellectual Property). Before him these thing didn't hold any value.
I just read that Color Bubble story on Slashdot here, that how the Guy spent 10 years to come up with a surfactant and Dye. He make a substancial inventment of time and money because the was the possiblity of large financial reward.
Without Patents we would be in Mexico, China, India, or Russia where there just isn't anywhere near as much innovation.
John L. Sokol
I haven't seen the patent first hand, but often something obvious now, wasn't at that time. If it were then why wasn't someone else doing it already.
I can list many examples of this. The mouse, keyboard, screens, printers, windowing environment, The Internet, an Operating system and even a CPU and the IC chips, were at the time major conceptual steps forward.
I can't tell you how hard it was to explain what the Internet or even a Network was to people in 1983, they just couldn't grasp it.
With patents if someone has been doing something then a patent gets filed by another person at later date, then the group getting sued must try to show that, if they can the patent holder will have to pay like multiple damages and costs.
So as a patent holder you never want to go to court with a weak patent.
But in practice, most people loose their nerve at the first letter from a patent holder, even if its a weak patent that wouldn't hold up.
As a result many people end up paying royalties or giving up without a fight, when they really would win and have that patent tossed out.
I have come to realize much of patent law is a poker game.
For a large company like Microsoft they look at the strength of a patent and the value of the company holding it and decide is it cheaper to pay or infringe. And same in reverse, even if a patent isn't worth the paper it's written on, if the company they sue can't afford to challenge it, then they win.
AT&T did this to many companies they felt were competition, file dozens of bogus suite against one company, from many little companies they control, and drive the small players out of business while leaving there name out of it.
http://www.surmet.com/alon.html
From site:
What is ALON(TM) Optical Ceramic?
ALON is a patented optical, polycrystalline ceramic with a grain size of 80 m to 250 m.
ALON has optical, mechanical and physical properties very similar to sapphire.
ALON can be made in more complex shapes, larger sizes, and at lower costs than sapphire
Chemical Name: Aluminum Oxynitride
This is similar to Aluminum Oxide also known as Sapphire (Al2O3) and Alumina which is also Al2O3
I would imagine a Diamond like Carbon crystal would have an even higher thermal conductivity and at the same time be even more durable and harder.
At the time, some 10 years ago, we found some un-labeled metalic packaged high powered IR devices at Haltek in Silicon Vally. Haltek went out of bussiness years ago.
s .htm?PID=0000000180c ts/us-night-vision-blackout-infrared-filter-kit-us nvbf-120.html
We also had a 1 watt IR laser diode we came across that was totaly amazing. It also worked for this purpose. If the surplus shop knew what is was it would have been out of our price range.
Also there is an IR "Blackout Filter" you can out over a car headlamp, that also does the trick.
http://www.usnightvision.com/Night_Vision_Product
http://www.opticsplanet.com/product-catalog/produ
http://ledmuseum.home.att.net/ledir.htm
http://dalewheat.com/ir.php
Yea, help america vote,
so they vote for me so I don't have too?
Or to make sure I don't vote incorrectly, as in some other candidate.
I remember the 1000's of hours me and my friend spent hacking into Qlink. For it's time there was nothing even close.
And to think, now it free....
The C64 rocked...
I know I sugested that about a year ago here on slashdot. //yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=137379&threshol d=0&commentsort=0&tid=158&tid=126&tid=153&tid=173& tid=155&tid=137&mode=thread&cid=11485581
Part of "No Pictures, Thanks" from 1/26/05
It's actualy easier, you just need a high powered IR source, such as a bunch of LED's,
the Cameras AGC automaticly adjusts so you turn totaly dark.
It's about time.
trace back where the spammers are tring to get customers to go and blast em.
Soup would be much better then coffee.
I mean I can drink cold coffee but nothing is as nice as hot soup.
Anyhow this isn't the first time something like this has been tried. I remember The self heating MRE's for US Troops.
http://www.allproducts.com/manufacture98/cncrafts
http://www.heatermeals.com/heatermeals.html
Some time back they had a self cooling soda can too.
My favorate reaction for something like this is Ferric chloride on aluminum, It gets hot enough to ignite paper almost instantly. But very quickly neutralizes the reaction. This way traditional Aluminum can technology could be used, rather then something exotic. But maybe the whole things needs to be FDA approved and edable...
If it is, it's because of changing social attitudes.
There are many causes, but here are some.
1.) There is a rush of quasi-technical people. They are not really good at it, but get there degree's and get into it technical fields just for the money. They are making is harder for natural born technical people to succeed.
2.) Investors tend put money in to these quasi-technical people, and not the Tesla's and Edison's. True innovation doens't come from Academics, that system screens out non-conformists.
3.) Many Investors can't tell the scam artist from the real people anymore. (see dot.com boom)
4.) Society goes in Cycles.
a.) War bring innovation, peace bring stagnation.
b.) But also change too quickly tends to bring on a strong backlash, where all the new is rejected. Just look as Christian fundamentalist, Taliban or any extreme religious groups these days.
5.) The torch may be moving again. By this I mean the eternal flame of innovation keeps moving. During the change things slow.
It was in China thousands of years ago, Greece, The Roman Empire, England during the Industrial Revolution, and now in the US. But already some is going to India, and Taiwan.
Where will it move to next, once the US society/government chases it off?
I mean it's getting too expensive here, also there is a constant ridicule of new things these days, a resistance to really new ideas and innovation beyond the next generation of cars, or mp3 players. Hell, Ma Bell held the Internet back for 20+ years (It couldn't blossom till the AT&T breakup). Now stem cell research and cloning is being blocked here. And chips manufacturing is all overseas because of chemical and pollution concerns. Even general medicine has ground to a halt here in the US from lawsuits, fat profits from the government protected drug companies and insurance companies.
The authors of dictionaries have learning a long time ago they don't dictate the language but they have keep up with it.
Language evolves with the group that uses it. In a sense many words and phrasing are changing to allow improved communication within that group, this is the natural way it's supposed to work. So in a sense "Proper English" is less clear, or more cumbersome then the new uses of the language. Just as Shakespeare's English, Beowulf, or the Queens English would be nearly impossible to have a simple technical conversion with.
Some how the English teacher set feels the opposite. Like they should dictate the language. This is why Esperanto worked so well (it's useless) since I didn't evolve on it's own. It is as if all the biologists were to dictate how organisms should be and attempt to exterminate any new species encountered, or attempt to keep alive the ones that no longer can survive on there own. Or how the church dictated the laws of physics and anyone who discovered something that didn't agree was rejected or worse, killed.
I can get Hard drives now from http://www.pricewatch.com/ for $0.38 Cents a gig.
I just get Regular Parallel ATA drives, or put them in a USB drive case.
I just bought 4 x 160Gb Hard Drives at $61 each! for this very purpose.
Backup to the drive then unplug and put pack in the Anti Static bags. I don't bother bolting the drive down, I just leave the computer open with the drive dangling out.
The reason this is better any other solution I have tried, is because I have data dating back to 1976 on media, and after going through 7 or more itteration where the old tape drive hardware is lost or stops working and is no longer available.
Or the tapes get gummy and sticky.
It's a nightmare. I spent almost a month backing out 9 track tape at differnet BPI's and 1/2 and 1/4 tape formats, 4mm Dat drives, 8mm, etc.
So far the best media has been CD, and DVD-Roms, although today they are too small to be useful.
The new Optical disks are not a popular standard like CD ensuring you will be able to read the data back at some point in the future.
Next has been the SCSI and IDE/ATA drives. These have been excelllent in the respect of backward compatablity and being able to read data from computers I had from 15 or more years ago. Heck I have even managed in fire up old SCSI drives from 20 years ago and read the data off it reciently. A 10 Mb SCSI drive I remember thinking $60 a meg was a great deal.
The next largest issue is, will the drive even still spin up.
I recomend keeping multiple copys for that. Luckily my constant upgraging and copy the data to the new drive solved of that.
There are also data recovery services that are excellent with dead drives at about $500 to $1500.
Somehow I have managed to keep almost every bit since 1980 still in my possession. And readily accessable.
Heck I can even run some of my old TRS80 Model1 code from 1979 and C64 stuff on emulators.
One of my friend approached me with this Idea back in 2000 and it's was so grotesque, that I designed an entire silent computer based on thermal Conduction.
The design can handle over 300 watts 3.X P4 cpu at full load, + drive + graphics cards and operate at near room temperature.
Just aluminum, drive is in 1" thick thermally conductive Silicon Rubber. (I added stuff to make it conduct heat)
Mineral Oil is just a bad idea. Even in my Aluminum design I have so much criticism about how hard is it to work on, get the parts etc. It's actually easier, but people just can't handle different then the status Quo.
Anyhow A companie was formed http://www.nisvara.com/, never went anywhere in 3 years. We had interest from everyone one though, even free offices from NASA Ames.
It blows away Hush computers or the Zalman stuff.
see http://www.videotechnology.com/old6-03.html Form more info and a Photo.
But your science has also evolved to become the new Religion. With it's faith based beliefs, martyrs, heretics and high priests (academia).
How is the current academic scientific establishment any different then the papacy?
When anyone who speaks out against popular belief is persecuted and punished?
Eric Laithwaite, Nicola Tesla & Timothy Leary for examples.
The current crop of students and academics are just a closed minded as Catholics, just as territorial, and in the end follow the rules of any bureaucracy which is to self perpetuate.
Which is what fuels this ridiculous evolution debate. How is it, do you think the scientific "religion" will have any more truth then Christians for example? At least christants believe in being good to other people. Witch doctor in the rainforests have had medicins and knowhow far beyond ours for years, and only after we have completely discredited them, do we come back and see what brews they were mixing up only to find many wonder drugs.
The current scientific establishment pushes so may fallacies, because it fits in as part of the government's propaganda, or some other powerful groups interests. How is this any different then medieval times when rich lords would sponsor religion or science to father there own goals.
(take the tobacco industry for example,or the pharmaceutical industry, how about pesticides vs. organic farming)
In the end, we are all arrogant humans that somehow think our beliefs and debates actually have some significant. That somehow this "means something".
We are all just defending our meme's.
Arrogant little monkeys we are.
Even if we are "artificaly selecting" things, We are still part of Nature. Our selections are part of natural selection.
I call is the selection criterial. And one of the things about evolution in any area(biology, GA, or memes) is just because we can't "with our brains" see any sense, it doesn't mean it's not there.
We often see only what we are looking for or want to see. And quite often there are things we really don't want to see, and our brains will deliberatly not let us see some of these things.
Well until you can explain Evolution and Quantum physics, I think Magic Pixie's sound just as plausable as anything else I have heard explained. After all string theory is more faith based then most religions.
Anyhow if you read throught the teaching of Budda, Koran, Bhava Gita, Bible and Tora, there are no major conflicts if you define God as the sum of all things. (everything in the Universe, and what ever else may exist) So in that point of view, god would have created evolution also.
Besides, Is is better to believe in God and be wrong, or to not believe in God and be wrong....
Yes the odds are low, but the universe is big.
Anyhow ever heard of infinite improbably drive.(Douglas Adams)
With enough time and space, anything is possible.
Has anyone ever stopped to think about how well evolution works? And that it's all encompassing.
It's an inescapable law of nature. Everything from our software and computer designs (meme's) to music, language and DNA based life is affected by evolution.
Not only that, it's impossible to create something not effected by it.
Even our views of God and our religions evolve. (what blasphemy)
After studying evolution for some time, I became a believer in GOD! Because only god could have created something as powerful as evolution.
My argument goes like this. If we are made in Gods image, and we make machines and tools to build more complex things. Then shouldn't God also? If God were to what would that tool look like. EVOLUTION....
So all this arguing over GOD vs. Evolution is totally stupid. No Evil.
I see science as the study of God's creation. It's sort of our responsibility to understand is and in doing this we can come to know God better
We did 13,000 viewers across the internet in 1991 to Sun Microsystems employiees.
Also my livecam technology (formerly at livecam.com) was going since 1994 with AUDIO!!!!
Even the Xing Streamworks product with Audio and video beat the real audio stuff out to the market!!!
Root has full authority over the system. Root programs that are exploited also do.
The idea was/is to make it impossible for a user to become root without going through the proper mechanisms. (su, setuid, group wheel, etc...)
In the OLD SCHOOL days it was an open challenge to see if a user account (student account) could even crash the system or get root access. Few would succeed. This was then there would only be 1 or maybe 2 computers on the whole school campus. Pre-networking days.
Something us SVR4 and BSD folks understood, but the many Linux guys totaly miss the point of why we do things a certain way.
So if a user account or program is comprimized is like on a ship with water tight bulk heads and steel hatches that lock shut, preventing the whole ship from flooding and sinking.
If a user account become compromized, as root you can still get in and fix it, completely!
If root is compromized, you probably can even get in, or tell if you've been compromized. This is really bad when you don't have physical access to the BOX. Like when it's 10,000 miles away. ( I have actualy been on boxes, as a hacker as well as root, when my adversary was on at the same time )
In a partly compromized box, as the hacker that had gained a user account, one can not fix up logs (*to cover ones tracks*), is restricted to IP port services above 1000. (this is why we use 8080). Can not add NEW IP address, send Raw packets (spoofing), or sniff the network.
They can not alter other users account. So if a web CGI get compromized they can't tag the SITE!!.
I can go on and on, but I hope you get the point. Root and USER accounts exist for some very good reasons. Layered security.
But it only works when you make your OS correctly. ( see FreeBSD, or OpenBSD for an example )
This was in 1994.
I could find anything in NYC to live in for under $2500 (near 1st and 49th st. ) I know there were better deals, but without knowing the right people, I had to pay a broker $10K just to find out about the apartments.
Parking the car was another $450 a month! (folks live in NJ so I needed a car)
Anyhow , How can you afford an OC house on $3500, they are starting at $600K now.
(I'm in DownTown LA now).
I don't know but even with my $10K a month take home I still have a hard time buying a house.
But I am scared stiff to get a variable rate / interest only loan, because if intrest rates rise, or prices fall, your SOL.
Maybe I just like to spend too much on computers. HDTV cameras and other hardware cost dearly too.
I moved out there from the Bay area 10 years ago.
I was getting 150K yr, but found 68% of my income went to taxes!
The City tax was higher then my federal!
My take home after everything was $3500 a month. I couldn't make ends meet and all in all lost over $30K in the move there and move back + the operating at a loss the whole time I was there.
With this new tax rull people who commute from New Jersey would end up paying taxes to two states!
I am so glad to be in California...
I have alway stated they need to masquerade as some other protocols.
I have been doing video streaming for 14 years now and it's always need necessary to look like http or ftp or some other protocol to get my Livecam streaming video past firewalls and other obstacles.
With my ECIP/SPAck it's been the same way. I have even had IETF members swear to official to block my packets at the backbone level.
The original Drawing that started it was:
t e.jpg
http://www.unixprogram.com/images/img3.jpg
With these little creatures running around doing things in the computer. IE: Daemons not demons.
Here is my proposal for a new Logo:
http://www.unixprogram.com/images/daemonet
Just for a hoot check out this one:
http://www.unixprogram.com/churchofbsd/