In case you're wondering about prior art, the datacenter-in-a-container idea turned up several times in the X-Files, which ran from 1993-2002. So, the idea isn't original to Brewster Kahle either.
OK, I think patents like this are evil and Google should find a way out of this, for example, by dedicating the patent to the public domain or giving people "free licenses".
In any case, it looks like the idea has been abandoned by Google anyway because it's not all that good. But back when they thought data centers like that were going to be economically important, it would have been a major pain for them if, say, Sun had obtained that patent and tried to force Google to buy hardware from them.
Publication of the idea makes it unpatentable "prior art;" once published, the idea can never be patented by anyone.
Well, this patent will provide a self-contained test for that notion, given that the concept has been published prior to Google's patent. So, either the patent will become invalidated, in which case prior publication works, or the patent won't get invalidated, in which case Google has a point in obtaining a patent.
GamePolitics reports that many faith communities are heavily debating the issue.
"Faith communities" have been debating irrelevant, meaningless issues for millennia. Entire populations have been wiped out about obscure questions about the meaning of the "holy trinity" or whether the resurrection is in flesh or spirit.
So, when "faith communities" start "heavily debating" an issue, get worried; these people are dangerous.
We'll pay when you show us the patents that Linux supposedly infringes.
(Well, I'm just saying that. We won't pay--even if we wanted to, the GPL would prohibit it--but we will stop infringing by removing the offending code or challenging the patent in court.)
A twirl, for the most part, just moves pixels around, and you can recover the original by simply moving the pixels back.
A blur is a transformation in which information is actually lost as pixel values get averaged and quantized. When people recover information from blurred images it's based on knowledge about what was originally there; for example, if you know it's one of 10 digits in a particular font, then you can often figure out what the digit was even if the image is blurred. You can probably not recover high resolution face images from blurred images because it's the fine details that matter.
You can use unlocked phones and installable software on several major US carriers. In Europe, you can do so on all carriers. If you don't have the phone you want or the features you want, you only have yourself to blame.
The cotton gin and the mechanical tractor have changed farming. It's called progress. Professional writers may be obsolete, and I say good riddance to intellectual snobbery ("exclusive club" and all that).
Why is it that intellectuals (writers, musicians, software developers, etc.) think that they deserve protection from technological progress that no other group gets?
That's just sour grape because Microsoft keeps trying to read my mail on Windows, but they can't get it to work. Instead, on Windows, backdoors make my mail available to any paying spy agency and viruses end up just distributing it to identity thieves in China.
Seriously: Ballmer has some gall accusing other companies of breach of privacy. Google does nothing different from Hotmail or any other web-based mail server that serves up targeted advertising.
I don't know about the legality of it (maybe they found some loophole), but sounds like a good service to me. It is silly that it takes "production companies" often years to put a show on DVD, often adding bogus menus and "features" that make the DVDs less usable than a straight recording.
I think we should consider legalizing this kind of service by allowing them to record and redistribute recordings from on-the-air or on-cable broadcasts by paying a flat fee of, say, US$2/hour of video.
That's not "desktop market share", it's browser market share among a biased sample of web sites. The data probably does give you an indication of trends (Linux is growing fast on the desktop), but it tells you little about current absolute desktop market share. In fact, many desktop Linux applications are in settings where people simply don't browse much.
The article gets a bunch of things right: Macintosh has a tremendous advantage in terms of marketing (not to mention a cadre of fanboys going around making wild claims about Linux), and Macintosh uptake is ultimately limited by its restriction to Apple-only hardware.
As for Vista, the numbers are probably an overestimate of its adoption since, again, the sample is likely biased towards home users and web surfers. But even a 10% upgrade rate from XP to Vista would be an embarrassment: that's lower than the PC replacement rate. Far from indicating that people are upgrading to Vista, it shows that even people who buy new PCs refuse to upgrade. If Vista offered any perceived value, people would be rushing out to buy it.
When one says "desktop" in reference to computers, that means, in common usage, the home/consumer desktop,
Quite to the contrary: the term traditionally refers to desktop computing in business and engineering environments only; it did not use to include home computers at all, which didn't even use to sit on desks. Since modern home computers blur the line between work and play, it now also includes many home computers.
In any case, I think we can agree: in the US home market, Macintosh dominates Linux, but in all other environments, it's pretty much anybody's guess.
That said (if you're going to bring logic into it), I still maintain that what I said is a valid interpretation of what you said.
What I said was correct: the set "home desktop users" is different from the set "all desktop users".
As for the whole Mac vs Linux market share contest, it's a pissing match
No, it's merely that Mac users are pissing all over Linux developers by making unsubstantiated statements about Linux supposedly trailing on the desktop, Linux supposedly having inferior usability, and all that.
And those numbers are meaningful, no matter how much you try to magick it away with sweeping generalizations.
It's you who is making the sweeping generalizations, and you still haven't shown any evidence that Macintosh is more successful than Linux on the desktop.
Again, I'm not saying that Linux is more successful, I'm saying we just don't know. So stop making unfounded claims, OK?
The purpose of the appendix is to provide job security and a steady income for surgeons. That's why God put it there. God loves doctors. What did you think it was there for?
Nah. I can tell you... going through my server logs, I see Macs outpacing Linux by a large number
Web server logs are not a reasonable way of determining desktop usage. The statistics you point to themselves contain a prominent disclaimer to that effect.
If you go to a larger, more heavy-traffic site like w3schools.com, you'll see that through 2005, Linux did lead Mac, but ever since the beginning of 2006, the fortunes of Mac have been rising while the fortunes of Linux have been pared back.
It's not surprising that web designers use more Macs. That tells you little about world wide desktop usage. A typical Linux desktop user in a corporation, government, or university gets a Linux desktop from the organization and uses it to fill in forms, write letters, do a lab assignment, schedule appointments, etc. They are not going to show up on w3schools.com or do much browsing.
but the number of people switching from Windows to Mac is outpacing the number switching from Windows to Linux while the number of people switching from Linux to Mac is outpacing the people switching from Mac to Linux.
Again you're picking numbers out of thin air. Furthermore, when corporations or governments pick platforms for organization-wide deployment, that is completely implausible.
My point is that there are a lot of universities or labs who might be using linux or bsd on the servers but have OS X on the desktop.
And my point is that you shouldn't present guesswork as fact.
You're forgetting that a lot of research labs and universities buy Apple iMacs or PowerMacs/Mac Pros because it's a preconfigured Unix machine.
Maybe in a handful of latte sipping enclaves of North America. In the real world, most universities and research labs have never been able to afford either Macs or UNIX workstations; they are upgrading their aging Windows NT PCs to Linux and really happy with it.
If you want some data, look at Google Trend data (google.com/trends): Linux-related terms generally dwarf Apple-related terms, both in absolute volume and world-wide base. On a worldwide basis, the notion that Macintosh is even close to Linux in desktop usage seems implausible (but until we have data, we won't know).
A home desktop isn't a desktop? Is that kinda like how a dwarf planet isn't a planet?
Come on, I'd expect better reading comprehension and logic from someone educated in UK schools... Of course, home desktops are desktops; they simply aren't the only desktops. Therefore, it is wrong to conclude from Apple's dominance over Linux in the home desktop market that it dominates Linux in the desktop market as a whole.
Look at the figures: OS X probably has between 10 and 22 million users worldwide (Apple's own figures, go look it up). Ubuntu alone has about 8 million active users according to Shuttleworth, but it's only one of four major desktop distros. So, OS X and Linux look like they are quite close in desktop usage, and it's anybody's guess which OS is actually ahead overall.
OMFG What a passionate argument about who is the best of the losers. And by "passionate" I meant "finding some little sub-category where you come out ahead." Here's a modification of your brilliant position:
I'm not talking about "some little subcategory". I'm saying that Linux may well be on a lot more desktops overall than Macintosh.
And, no, I'm not "passionate" about it, I'm just asking people like you to stick to the facts.
Slashdot Mirror
In case you're wondering about prior art, the datacenter-in-a-container idea turned up several times in the X-Files, which ran from 1993-2002. So, the idea isn't original to Brewster Kahle either.
OK, I think patents like this are evil and Google should find a way out of this, for example, by dedicating the patent to the public domain or giving people "free licenses".
In any case, it looks like the idea has been abandoned by Google anyway because it's not all that good. But back when they thought data centers like that were going to be economically important, it would have been a major pain for them if, say, Sun had obtained that patent and tried to force Google to buy hardware from them.
Publication of the idea makes it unpatentable "prior art;" once published, the idea can never be patented by anyone.
Well, this patent will provide a self-contained test for that notion, given that the concept has been published prior to Google's patent. So, either the patent will become invalidated, in which case prior publication works, or the patent won't get invalidated, in which case Google has a point in obtaining a patent.
GamePolitics reports that many faith communities are heavily debating the issue.
"Faith communities" have been debating irrelevant, meaningless issues for millennia. Entire populations have been wiped out about obscure questions about the meaning of the "holy trinity" or whether the resurrection is in flesh or spirit.
So, when "faith communities" start "heavily debating" an issue, get worried; these people are dangerous.
We'll pay when you show us the patents that Linux supposedly infringes.
(Well, I'm just saying that. We won't pay--even if we wanted to, the GPL would prohibit it--but we will stop infringing by removing the offending code or challenging the patent in court.)
A twirl, for the most part, just moves pixels around, and you can recover the original by simply moving the pixels back.
A blur is a transformation in which information is actually lost as pixel values get averaged and quantized. When people recover information from blurred images it's based on knowledge about what was originally there; for example, if you know it's one of 10 digits in a particular font, then you can often figure out what the digit was even if the image is blurred. You can probably not recover high resolution face images from blurred images because it's the fine details that matter.
You can use unlocked phones and installable software on several major US carriers. In Europe, you can do so on all carriers. If you don't have the phone you want or the features you want, you only have yourself to blame.
The cotton gin and the mechanical tractor have changed farming. It's called progress. Professional writers may be obsolete, and I say good riddance to intellectual snobbery ("exclusive club" and all that).
Why is it that intellectuals (writers, musicians, software developers, etc.) think that they deserve protection from technological progress that no other group gets?
That's just sour grape because Microsoft keeps trying to read my mail on Windows, but they can't get it to work. Instead, on Windows, backdoors make my mail available to any paying spy agency and viruses end up just distributing it to identity thieves in China.
Seriously: Ballmer has some gall accusing other companies of breach of privacy. Google does nothing different from Hotmail or any other web-based mail server that serves up targeted advertising.
No, wireheads have electrodes in the pleasure centers; that's a lot more fun.
After a few millenia, the term "new" hardly applies.
I don't know about the legality of it (maybe they found some loophole), but sounds like a good service to me. It is silly that it takes "production companies" often years to put a show on DVD, often adding bogus menus and "features" that make the DVDs less usable than a straight recording.
I think we should consider legalizing this kind of service by allowing them to record and redistribute recordings from on-the-air or on-cable broadcasts by paying a flat fee of, say, US$2/hour of video.
That's not "desktop market share", it's browser market share among a biased sample of web sites. The data probably does give you an indication of trends (Linux is growing fast on the desktop), but it tells you little about current absolute desktop market share. In fact, many desktop Linux applications are in settings where people simply don't browse much.
The article gets a bunch of things right: Macintosh has a tremendous advantage in terms of marketing (not to mention a cadre of fanboys going around making wild claims about Linux), and Macintosh uptake is ultimately limited by its restriction to Apple-only hardware.
As for Vista, the numbers are probably an overestimate of its adoption since, again, the sample is likely biased towards home users and web surfers. But even a 10% upgrade rate from XP to Vista would be an embarrassment: that's lower than the PC replacement rate. Far from indicating that people are upgrading to Vista, it shows that even people who buy new PCs refuse to upgrade. If Vista offered any perceived value, people would be rushing out to buy it.
When one says "desktop" in reference to computers, that means, in common usage, the home/consumer desktop,
Quite to the contrary: the term traditionally refers to desktop computing in business and engineering environments only; it did not use to include home computers at all, which didn't even use to sit on desks. Since modern home computers blur the line between work and play, it now also includes many home computers.
In any case, I think we can agree: in the US home market, Macintosh dominates Linux, but in all other environments, it's pretty much anybody's guess.
That said (if you're going to bring logic into it), I still maintain that what I said is a valid interpretation of what you said.
What I said was correct: the set "home desktop users" is different from the set "all desktop users".
As for the whole Mac vs Linux market share contest, it's a pissing match
No, it's merely that Mac users are pissing all over Linux developers by making unsubstantiated statements about Linux supposedly trailing on the desktop, Linux supposedly having inferior usability, and all that.
And those numbers are meaningful, no matter how much you try to magick it away with sweeping generalizations.
It's you who is making the sweeping generalizations, and you still haven't shown any evidence that Macintosh is more successful than Linux on the desktop.
Again, I'm not saying that Linux is more successful, I'm saying we just don't know. So stop making unfounded claims, OK?
Says the guy who cites Google Trends lists of popular search terms as the source that Linux has higher desktop marketshare than MacOS.
I'm not trying to prove that Linux has "higher desktop marketshare", I'm saying: WE DON'T KNOW.
How clearly do you need it spelled out for you?
That *is* good news if the only way of getting the product would be under monopolistic or otherwise harmful terms.
By analogy, early adopters of a pyramid scheme often make a lot of money, but on the whole, it's still better to outlaw them.
The purpose of the appendix is to provide job security and a steady income for surgeons. That's why God put it there. God loves doctors. What did you think it was there for?
Nah. I can tell you... going through my server logs, I see Macs outpacing Linux by a large number
Web server logs are not a reasonable way of determining desktop usage. The statistics you point to themselves contain a prominent disclaimer to that effect.
If you go to a larger, more heavy-traffic site like w3schools.com, you'll see that through 2005, Linux did lead Mac, but ever since the beginning of 2006, the fortunes of Mac have been rising while the fortunes of Linux have been pared back.
It's not surprising that web designers use more Macs. That tells you little about world wide desktop usage. A typical Linux desktop user in a corporation, government, or university gets a Linux desktop from the organization and uses it to fill in forms, write letters, do a lab assignment, schedule appointments, etc. They are not going to show up on w3schools.com or do much browsing.
but the number of people switching from Windows to Mac is outpacing the number switching from Windows to Linux while the number of people switching from Linux to Mac is outpacing the people switching from Mac to Linux.
Again you're picking numbers out of thin air. Furthermore, when corporations or governments pick platforms for organization-wide deployment, that is completely implausible.
I don't have to "prove" anything because I didn't claim anything; I'm merely pointing out that there is reasonable doubt that Macintosh is dominant.
The guy who has something to prove is the guy who stated:
So, where is the proof for that assertion?
My point is that there are a lot of universities or labs who might be using linux or bsd on the servers but have OS X on the desktop.
And my point is that you shouldn't present guesswork as fact.
You're forgetting that a lot of research labs and universities buy Apple iMacs or PowerMacs/Mac Pros because it's a preconfigured Unix machine.
Maybe in a handful of latte sipping enclaves of North America. In the real world, most universities and research labs have never been able to afford either Macs or UNIX workstations; they are upgrading their aging Windows NT PCs to Linux and really happy with it.
If you want some data, look at Google Trend data (google.com/trends): Linux-related terms generally dwarf Apple-related terms, both in absolute volume and world-wide base. On a worldwide basis, the notion that Macintosh is even close to Linux in desktop usage seems implausible (but until we have data, we won't know).
A home desktop isn't a desktop? Is that kinda like how a dwarf planet isn't a planet?
Come on, I'd expect better reading comprehension and logic from someone educated in UK schools... Of course, home desktops are desktops; they simply aren't the only desktops. Therefore, it is wrong to conclude from Apple's dominance over Linux in the home desktop market that it dominates Linux in the desktop market as a whole.
Look at the figures: OS X probably has between 10 and 22 million users worldwide (Apple's own figures, go look it up). Ubuntu alone has about 8 million active users according to Shuttleworth, but it's only one of four major desktop distros. So, OS X and Linux look like they are quite close in desktop usage, and it's anybody's guess which OS is actually ahead overall.
OMFG What a passionate argument about who is the best of the losers. And by "passionate" I meant "finding some little sub-category where you come out ahead." Here's a modification of your brilliant position:
I'm not talking about "some little subcategory". I'm saying that Linux may well be on a lot more desktops overall than Macintosh.
And, no, I'm not "passionate" about it, I'm just asking people like you to stick to the facts.
One of the reasons for having unlocked phones is precisely that people can buy cheap sim cards when they travel and thereby create some competition.
So, I think "unlocked" means "unlocked".