If humanity (or even only the G20) were to ‘throw everything they have at it to build a space station of the scale of Elysium in 150 years’ then we would absolutely assure that “Earth is beyond repair”. Although not strictly a zero-sum game, economics & engineering are relatively inelastic at each plateau of history unless some paradigms seriously shift, lurching humanity to the next plateau until the next set of paradigm shifts:
1) numerous liquid-fluoride thorium reactors (or analogue) at each locality providing abundant power for pennies on the dollar, when compared to current energy storage, distribution, and consumption technologies;
2) inexpensive extraction of minerals deep below Earth's crust (or analogue) providing more resources than the sum total of all of human history;
3) rail-guns (or analogue) inexpensively allowing vast mass per payload to reach escape velocity; ...)
infinity) and a bunch more paradigm shifts about which no person on the planet currently has the slightest inkling at all. Here the unit of measure of infinity is “bunches”—actually probably “bunches of bunches of bunches of...” in depth & breadth.
If Intel has ceased be a foundry to 3rd-parties' custom silicon, then someone had better tell Intel's first foundry customer: Achronix FPGAs, currently the first 20nm FPGAs on the planet and on track to perhaps be the first 14nm FPGAs on the planet.
Open source is Ayn Rand's 1949 movie & 1943 novel The Fountainhead: be your own independent architect, do what you love to do, put it out there, see if anyone else loves it too, find your birds of a feather, flock together, and f— everyone else, especially your competitors on similar projects.
The key words here are: "financial assets" and "intangible assets". Bitcoin mining is both of these.
from Capital gain's Wikipedia article:
The gain is the difference between a higher selling price and a lower purchase price.
The gain is the difference between 1) the selling price of the financial asset after the mathematics (or after WoW achievement) and 2) the purchase price of the intangible asset before the mathematics (or before the WoW achievement).
Keep track of expenses (e.g., equipment, floor space rental, electricity consumption) that serve as the investment for the BitCoin mining. This comes off the bottom-line profit. Otherwise, you would pay 'income' taxes on your 'outflow'.
It is very difficult to make money in discovering something new. The EU & USA governments have already spent themselves to the max, so they cannot provide, say, a trillion dollars per year for needed R&D. The VCs like to pursue something either narcissistic or advertising based (or preferably both), because that is what they understand the most and looks like easy money.
After having read several textbooks on BASIC, 8080 machine code, and 6502 machine code before I had access to a computer in rural Indiana, I wrote hand-assembled 6502 machine code by hand and POKED it in as binary numbers into RAM via BASIC. (By that point, I was bored by writing programs in mere interpreted BASIC.) Within a year, I had built my own 8088 IBM PC clone and wrote my own 8088 assembler in Turbo Pascal.
What do you mean by derived as opposed to isomorphic? The two terms are not exclusive.
Derived: at least one noncosmetic change from the antecedent so that the derived FSM produces at least one different output from the same inputs in the same accumulated context in the antecedent FSM. Isomorphic: the commonplace mathematical definition: Two FSMs are isomorphic if they both produce the pairwise-same outputs when given the pairwise-same inputs within the corresponding pairwise-same accumulated context. You are correct to observe that derived and isomorphic are not synonyms.
Yes, they do - the patent claims begin with a preamble that states whether they recite a machine or apparatus, or a method. That's presumptively conclusive evidence.
I am glad that you mentioned a patent's recitation of apparatus as being presumptively conclusive: from the footnote 18 of In re Bilski:
Complemental Accident Insurance Policy, U.S. Patent No. 389,818 (issued Sept. 18, 1888) (claiming a “complemental insurance policy” as an apparatus consisting of two separate cards secured together); Insurance System, U.S. Patent No. 853,852 (issued May 14, 1907) (claiming a “two-part insurance policy” as “an article of manufacture”).
The salient question here is whether the assemblage of 2 pieces of paper stapled together is (still) an apparatus that is an article of manufacture that evokes the correct magic words to become patent eligible under Title 35 USC 101 or 103 (as that assemblage was post-1888 & post-1907). Similarly, the salient question is whether the assemblage of an FSM loaded transiently into an FPGA enjoys enough of the patent-eligibility status as an apparatus that is an article of assembly manufacture as when that same FSM lithographed onto a silicon die as an article of chemical manufacture. If it does, then does that same* FSM represented by sequential imperative instructions in a processor enjoy the same patent-eligibility status? If transiently-stored FSM in an FPGA were in fact found to be definitively patent eligible but that same transiently-stored FSM represented as imperative instructions is patent-ineligible, then what portion of Title 35 USC 101 or 103 implicitly inhibits or overtly prohibits the process of imperative instructions being patent-eligible subject matter, but conversely allows that same FSM to be patent-eligible subject matter when transliterated into a netlist loaded transiently into an FPGA or lithographed (a form of mere printing as words in a book) onto a silicon die. It seems that A) what is sauce for cooking the imperative goose is B) sauce for cooking the lithographed gander as well [and as well C) for the netlist gosling begat by the goose's fleeting transience & the gander's logic gates]. An FSM is an FSM is an FSM.
* Here a "same" FSM is topologically isomorphic with the pairwise-same outputs for the pairwise-same inputs in the pairwise-same accumulated context, even if transliterated into variant encodings: imperative instructions versus FPGA netlist versus silicon-die lithography.
There are several requirements in the patent act, and they can be thought of as a set of thresholds that must be passed:
35 USC 101 requires that a claimed invention be directed to patent eligible subject matter: a process, machine (though that term is never defined), article of manufacture, or composition of matter (it also requires that the invention is useful). The courts have decided that these categories are very broad, but don't include "abstract ideas" (though that term is never defined), laws of nature, or natural phenomena.
If the claimed invention passes that low threshold for 101, 35 USC 102 requires that the invention must be new or novel. That's a higher bar, but not a huge one - if I'm the first person to make a red car and claim that in a patent application, that's new, even if blue cars existed.
If the claimed invention passes that threshold, then 35 USC 103 requires that the invention must be nonobvious. A derived finite-state machine (FSM) is obvious if an isomorphic finite-state machine existed, even if no one has ever made the derived FSM before.
So, for example, if some logic lithographed onto a silicon die or downloaded as a netlist into an FPGA causes a computer to paint the screen in red paisley and that's never been done before, it's new... but it might be nonobvious and in fact patent eligible.
The problem is when modes of implementation of the FSM get compartmentalized into logic gates versus sequential imperative instructions, because patentability of FSMs in logic circuits has been established for decades, while patentability of FSMs in sequential imperative instructions has not. And so, you get cases like CLS or Bilski where the judges want to invalidate the patent because it's stupidly obvious, but they have no evidence on the record that clearly establishes what an apparatus or machine is and is not... so they declare it an abstract idea and invalid. In particular, here, the judges started carving out everything from the patent claim that made it non-abstract, declaring it irrelevant, until the only thing left was abstract. The outcome may be the right one, but it's for the wrong reason - it's like finding a murderer guilty because you hate his face. Maybe he was actually the murderer, but you're finding him guilty for the wrong reason.
For example, Intel not only patents the lithography process of silicon dies of x86 processors, but the logic circuit therein as well in separate patents. But that logic circuit can be implemented in a sufficiently large FPGA, which has software-like characteristics that strongly resemble loading a different sequential imperative machine-code program into a general-purpose imperative-machine-code processor, but with the key difference being the lack of sequential imperative instructions in the FPGA or lithographed IC (ignoring the sequentialness of pulsed timing waves of concurrent gate-flipping in the progress of computation in the FPGA or lithographed IC.)
Does teaching an administrative assistant a sufficiently-different shorthand script (or stenotype chorded keyboard) enable her to write in a different set of regular expressions that may be nonisomorphic to the original set of regular-expression shorthand-script?
At what point did the automobile obtain a revised finite-state machine by changing the brand of fuel (or even changing the formulation of gasoline for that matter)? Conversely, the FPGA or imperative-machine-code processor obtains a replacement finite-state machine by loading a new netlist or instruction-sequence.
As a shape & color, red paisley would be a 14-year design patent, not a 20-year utility patent. The topic here is utility patents, which are for the "useful arts". Because they are outside the "useful arts", the recognizable shape & color in design patents are for trade-dress topics outside of what can be trademarked.
Loading a new netmask into an FPGA or loading new imperative instructions into a machine-code processor effectively makes it a new finite-state machine.
Slashdot Mirror
what is considered “good” in software is usually subjective.
If humanity (or even only the G20) were to ‘throw everything they have at it to build a space station of the scale of Elysium in 150 years’ then we would absolutely assure that “Earth is beyond repair”. Although not strictly a zero-sum game, economics & engineering are relatively inelastic at each plateau of history unless some paradigms seriously shift, lurching humanity to the next plateau until the next set of paradigm shifts:
...) ...” in depth & breadth.
1) numerous liquid-fluoride thorium reactors (or analogue) at each locality providing abundant power for pennies on the dollar, when compared to current energy storage, distribution, and consumption technologies;
2) inexpensive extraction of minerals deep below Earth's crust (or analogue) providing more resources than the sum total of all of human history;
3) rail-guns (or analogue) inexpensively allowing vast mass per payload to reach escape velocity;
infinity) and a bunch more paradigm shifts about which no person on the planet currently has the slightest inkling at all. Here the unit of measure of infinity is “bunches”—actually probably “bunches of bunches of bunches of
If Intel has ceased be a foundry to 3rd-parties' custom silicon, then someone had better tell Intel's first foundry customer: Achronix FPGAs, currently the first 20nm FPGAs on the planet and on track to perhaps be the first 14nm FPGAs on the planet.
Ada has them too.
I agree: AdaCore dual licenses GNAT Pro, while getting along with FSF rather intimately as part of GPL-licensed GCC SVN repository.
Oh great! Now all the targlferf fanboys are going to come out of the woodwork to strut their stuff.
Open source is Ayn Rand's 1949 movie & 1943 novel The Fountainhead: be your own independent architect, do what you love to do, put it out there, see if anyone else loves it too, find your birds of a feather, flock together, and f— everyone else, especially your competitors on similar projects.
The key words here are: "financial assets" and "intangible assets". Bitcoin mining is both of these.
from Capital gain's Wikipedia article:
The gain is the difference between a higher selling price and a lower purchase price.
The gain is the difference between 1) the selling price of the financial asset after the mathematics (or after WoW achievement) and 2) the purchase price of the intangible asset before the mathematics (or before the WoW achievement).
Keep track of expenses (e.g., equipment, floor space rental, electricity consumption) that serve as the investment for the BitCoin mining. This comes off the bottom-line profit. Otherwise, you would pay 'income' taxes on your 'outflow'.
flying electric scooter or flying electric motorcycle maybe, but no flight via pedal-only power means not a flying bicycle
electric scooter or motorcycle maybe, but no flight via manual pedal-power-only means not a flying bicycle
They also talk over and over about how "The Police" are stumped. As if "The Police" was some kind of borg mind.
Well, The Police did put out an album entitled Ghost in the Machine, so perhaps that qualifies as Borg-Lite.
It is very difficult to make money in discovering something new. The EU & USA governments have already spent themselves to the max, so they cannot provide, say, a trillion dollars per year for needed R&D. The VCs like to pursue something either narcissistic or advertising based (or preferably both), because that is what they understand the most and looks like easy money.
If 1960s TANG was orange-flavored, what flavor will 2020s TANG be?
After having read several textbooks on BASIC, 8080 machine code, and 6502 machine code before I had access to a computer in rural Indiana, I wrote hand-assembled 6502 machine code by hand and POKED it in as binary numbers into RAM via BASIC. (By that point, I was bored by writing programs in mere interpreted BASIC.) Within a year, I had built my own 8088 IBM PC clone and wrote my own 8088 assembler in Turbo Pascal.
... turns over in its grave.
No, its the pastel glop served at the restaurant during the restaurant in the 1985 Terry Gilliam film _Brazil_.
What do you mean by derived as opposed to isomorphic? The two terms are not exclusive.
Derived: at least one noncosmetic change from the antecedent so that the derived FSM produces at least one different output from the same inputs in the same accumulated context in the antecedent FSM.
Isomorphic: the commonplace mathematical definition: Two FSMs are isomorphic if they both produce the pairwise-same outputs when given the pairwise-same inputs within the corresponding pairwise-same accumulated context. You are correct to observe that derived and isomorphic are not synonyms.
Yes, they do - the patent claims begin with a preamble that states whether they recite a machine or apparatus, or a method. That's presumptively conclusive evidence.
I am glad that you mentioned a patent's recitation of apparatus as being presumptively conclusive: from the footnote 18 of In re Bilski:
Complemental Accident Insurance Policy, U.S. Patent No. 389,818 (issued Sept. 18, 1888) (claiming a “complemental insurance policy” as an apparatus consisting of two separate cards secured together); Insurance System, U.S. Patent No. 853,852 (issued May 14, 1907) (claiming a “two-part insurance policy” as “an article of manufacture”).
The salient question here is whether the assemblage of 2 pieces of paper stapled together is (still) an apparatus that is an article of manufacture that evokes the correct magic words to become patent eligible under Title 35 USC 101 or 103 (as that assemblage was post-1888 & post-1907). Similarly, the salient question is whether the assemblage of an FSM loaded transiently into an FPGA enjoys enough of the patent-eligibility status as an apparatus that is an article of assembly manufacture as when that same FSM lithographed onto a silicon die as an article of chemical manufacture. If it does, then does that same* FSM represented by sequential imperative instructions in a processor enjoy the same patent-eligibility status? If transiently-stored FSM in an FPGA were in fact found to be definitively patent eligible but that same transiently-stored FSM represented as imperative instructions is patent-ineligible, then what portion of Title 35 USC 101 or 103 implicitly inhibits or overtly prohibits the process of imperative instructions being patent-eligible subject matter, but conversely allows that same FSM to be patent-eligible subject matter when transliterated into a netlist loaded transiently into an FPGA or lithographed (a form of mere printing as words in a book) onto a silicon die. It seems that A) what is sauce for cooking the imperative goose is B) sauce for cooking the lithographed gander as well [and as well C) for the netlist gosling begat by the goose's fleeting transience & the gander's logic gates]. An FSM is an FSM is an FSM.
* Here a "same" FSM is topologically isomorphic with the pairwise-same outputs for the pairwise-same inputs in the pairwise-same accumulated context, even if transliterated into variant encodings: imperative instructions versus FPGA netlist versus silicon-die lithography.
There are several requirements in the patent act, and they can be thought of as a set of thresholds that must be passed:
35 USC 101 requires that a claimed invention be directed to patent eligible subject matter: a process, machine (though that term is never defined), article of manufacture, or composition of matter (it also requires that the invention is useful). The courts have decided that these categories are very broad, but don't include "abstract ideas" (though that term is never defined), laws of nature, or natural phenomena.
If the claimed invention passes that low threshold for 101, 35 USC 102 requires that the invention must be new or novel. That's a higher bar, but not a huge one - if I'm the first person to make a red car and claim that in a patent application, that's new, even if blue cars existed.
If the claimed invention passes that threshold, then 35 USC 103 requires that the invention must be nonobvious. A derived finite-state machine (FSM) is obvious if an isomorphic finite-state machine existed, even if no one has ever made the derived FSM before.
So, for example, if some logic lithographed onto a silicon die or downloaded as a netlist into an FPGA causes a computer to paint the screen in red paisley and that's never been done before, it's new... but it might be nonobvious and in fact patent eligible.
The problem is when modes of implementation of the FSM get compartmentalized into logic gates versus sequential imperative instructions, because patentability of FSMs in logic circuits has been established for decades, while patentability of FSMs in sequential imperative instructions has not. And so, you get cases like CLS or Bilski where the judges want to invalidate the patent because it's stupidly obvious, but they have no evidence on the record that clearly establishes what an apparatus or machine is and is not... so they declare it an abstract idea and invalid. In particular, here, the judges started carving out everything from the patent claim that made it non-abstract, declaring it irrelevant, until the only thing left was abstract. The outcome may be the right one, but it's for the wrong reason - it's like finding a murderer guilty because you hate his face. Maybe he was actually the murderer, but you're finding him guilty for the wrong reason.
For example, Intel not only patents the lithography process of silicon dies of x86 processors, but the logic circuit therein as well in separate patents. But that logic circuit can be implemented in a sufficiently large FPGA, which has software-like characteristics that strongly resemble loading a different sequential imperative machine-code program into a general-purpose imperative-machine-code processor, but with the key difference being the lack of sequential imperative instructions in the FPGA or lithographed IC (ignoring the sequentialness of pulsed timing waves of concurrent gate-flipping in the progress of computation in the FPGA or lithographed IC.)
Does teaching an administrative assistant a sufficiently-different shorthand script (or stenotype chorded keyboard) enable her to write in a different set of regular expressions that may be nonisomorphic to the original set of regular-expression shorthand-script?
At what point did the automobile obtain a revised finite-state machine by changing the brand of fuel (or even changing the formulation of gasoline for that matter)?
Conversely, the FPGA or imperative-machine-code processor obtains a replacement finite-state machine by loading a new netlist or instruction-sequence.
As a shape & color, red paisley would be a 14-year design patent, not a 20-year utility patent. The topic here is utility patents, which are for the "useful arts". Because they are outside the "useful arts", the recognizable shape & color in design patents are for trade-dress topics outside of what can be trademarked.
Where is the software loaded within your pencil? Specifically, where did the pencil obtain a new finite-state machine loaded into its graphite?
brain-fart: I mean NETLIST above, not netmask. God, I hate getting old. :-)
Loading a new netmask into an FPGA or loading new imperative instructions into a machine-code processor effectively makes it a new finite-state machine.