If I'm not mistaken, the Supreme Court recently ruled on a similar issue, saying that States' selling of DMV information to 3rd parties was an unconstitutional invasion of people's privacy.
If that is the case, then these guys will come toppling down when the courts rule that they're infringing on people's rights... (At least, I hope that the courts will see the glaringly obvious similarities here!)
If anybody has the specifics on the aforementioned Supreme Court ruling, please let me know...
-Hypr Geeque
Direct all flames to the above address... (especially if you're on a large campus/corporate network!)
[T]he idea that your language restricts what and how you can think - is about 95% false.
I dunno... Orwell's newspeak/doublethink combination in 1984 made a helluva lot of sense to me.
And even if flaws in the language don't absolutely prohibit you from thinking of a concept, they can make it prohibitively difficult, compared to someone whose language already contains said idea, who may take that concept for granted.
[Snippity-snip!]
[The choice of language], however, seems mostly to be a question of finding the right tool for the job.
*Cough, cough*
The choice of language can be critical, as improvisation can be impossible if the tool you choose is horribly inadequate.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll go chop down the mightiest tree in the forest... with a herring!
Es el Señor Cobarde Anónimo, con el corazón de perrrrrrrrrrrrro....
(It's Mister AC, with the heart of a dog...)
Please, sir or madam, if you wish to say "eat shit, sons of whore(s)", please utilize a language that the majority of/. (and especially the moderators) can understand and appreciate.
Muchas gracias, maricón.
(Lovely... now I'm not sure whether I get marked "Informative" or "Flamebait"...)
OTOH, people will probably keep trying to post in nonstandard languages... oh well... c'est la vie.
Not only do we have one Really Big Record Company (and you know how much we all love those), we now see the AOL/TW monopoly emerging...
For an example of how this will affect the consumer... well, take a look at TIME and Newsweek's coverages of the AOL/Time-Warner Merger. Very different, indeed! (Although, since Newsweek directly competes with TIME, they might also have ulterior motives...)
Silly AC... even if your comment did win the t-shirt, how would you be able to claim it?
Heh heh heh heh heh... the true price of Cowardly Anonymity!
Hmm... here's a new, Slashdot-only iSmell:
Eau du Anonymous Coward. It smells like rotten eggs chucked at your house by somebody out of whom you'd REALLY like to beat the snot, if only you knew who it was.
OTOH, this particular AC seems to be the benign sort. ("Benign" in the tumor sense, not the fluffy bunny frolicking in the meadow.)
Whn I saw this articl, th only thing I smlld was root br squirting out my nos and mssing up my kyboard. (Wll, I flt it was hillarious at th tim!;) How I managd to typ th lttr "" in th Subjct lin is byond m!
Keeping SETI@home closed source only solves half the problem...
You're completely forgetting about all the cheaters who could just travel to some planet N light-years away, then travel back in time (N + Blargh + Glorp) years, where Blargh = the time it took said cheater to reach said planet, and Glorp is the time it would take the cheater to build an ultra-high powered radio transmitter and aim it to the exact point that the Arecibo telescope will be in N years, plus up to 24 hours of "padding time" to ensure that the telescope will be facing the right direction at the moment the signal arrives.
Then, said cheater simply pushes the Big Red Button labelled "Transmit Bogus Alien Mating Calls To Fools On Earth", sits back and waits.
Of course, he'll still have to rush back to Earth in time to compromise the SETI@Home network's security to ensure that the data packets containing the bogus interstellar message get routed to his computer alone!
Then, he sits and waits.... soon, the data packets are processed, and sent back to SETI... yes, my pretties... soon I^H...he... will receive a pat on the back and perhaps a small thank-you check for my^H^H...his..."contribution" to science...
Umm... the preceeding situation was, ahem, completely hypothetical and I^Hthe hypothetical "cheater" would never stoop so low just to trick SETI@Home into thinking that I, Hypergeek^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hhe had just found extra-terrestrial intelligence.
Or maybe this hypothetical person-whom-I-don't-know would stoop so low... I mean, I have no idea-- it's all speculation, right?
[Mumble... that SETI check had better be enough to cover the costs of the interstellar space ship, the time machine, and the ultra-high-powered radio transmitter... otherwise Dad'll kill me when he gets his MasterCard bill!]
Umm... SETI@Home does offer a monetary reward for finding extraterrestrial life, right?
Uh oh. I'm dead. Unless, that is, anybody could figure out a way I could either:
Flee to another solar system really fast
Go back in time and stop myself from... nah... go forward in time to the end of the month and hide my dad's credit statement
Send a distress call to extra-terrestrials so they'd come and rescue me. Oh, scratch that one... the signal would never reach them in time, and, besides, I only built a "Transmit TO Earth" high-powered radio transmitter.
Or, if nobody can figure out a way to do those things... perhaps you could help me find a good recycling plant that pays a decent rate for scrap metal? I figure I can make back 1/10000000000th of what I owe... damn... it's too bad nobody would possibly be interested in buying a used interstellar spaceship, time machine, and ultra-high-powered radio transmitter... at least, not anybody on Slashdot... [Sigh...]
Well, I'm dead Real Soon Now. There's only one way to prevent this tragedy from claiming the lives of other, innocent victims: OPEN SOURCE SETI@HOME!!
Perhaps, but it's still possible to write a program to cull out the boring stuff, and find out all the really bad stuff; the kind that society can't tolerate, and which would make certain individual "sinners" social lepers unless they forked over moby moolah to Mister Cracker.
As for the loud, capitalized "WE WERE ALL BORN IN SIN"... well, you might find your preaching better-received on a different forum. If you find any scientific evidence to support your claims, let me know.
the day some obscure cracker in the remote reaches of outer Azerbaijan (or wherever) announces that he's compromised the Confessor site's security and is holding the entire list of "sins and sinners" for ransom.
Of course, if he doesn't get ransom from the site, he could always start blackmailing the individual "sinners"... this could end up being far more profitable for him than stealing any credit card database.
A number of posts have mentioned that if the NSA keeps its "distro" completely in-house, they aren't required to distribute their source code.
Others have pointed out that an insider could simply sell/distribute the NSA Linux, and that the NSA wouldn't be able to do much about its further distribution.
But, if they keep the source code in a very secure place, and separate from most of their computers (which would only contain the binaries), then anyone who tried to disseminate the binaries could be sued by the NSA (since they have the copyright on their "derivative work") over GPL violations.
The NSA would simply claim that the GPL prohibits distribution of the binaries without the source code, and before anyone got the chance to reverse engineer the binaries, the NSA'd prosecute anybody caught distributing said binaries for software piracy.
Kind of a disgusting loophole... if anybody could come up with any passage from the GPL (or copyright law) that contradicts this, I'd sleep much better tonight!
First they ignored UDP (the protocol), now they're the ones getting the UDP (the swift kick in the pants that is the Wrath of the 'Net).
And in other news, @Home announced today that it will be buying out the Ministry of Truth, making it the world's third largest Crappy-ISP-cum-Formerly-Half-Decent-News-and-Enter tainment-Company, closely trailing AOL-Time-Warner and MSNBC.
"To relax the graphical constraints on the precision of the handwriting that is required for accurate computerized interpretation of handwritten text, the text that is to be interpreted is written in accordance with this invention using symbols that are exceptionally well separated from each other graphically. These symbols preferably define an orthographic alphabet to reduce the time and effort that is required to learn to write text with them at an acceptably high rate. Furthermore, to accommodate "eyes-free" writing of text and the writing of text in spatially constrained text entry fields, the symbols advantageously are defined by unistrokes (as used herein, a "unistroke" is a single, unbroken stroke)."
And notice the title, expressing what is being patented: "Unistrokes for computerized interpretation of handwriting"
Not any method of computerized handwriting recognition, but only single-stroke characters.
Aha! Two strokes! That means that Grafiti's not representing the entire alphabet in single-stroke form.
"But", you cry, "a lot of the letters are in single-stroke form!"
Like the letters "I", "O", "U", "S", "C", and "V"? A lot of the Roman alphabet is already expressed in single-stroke form.
So 3Com isn't trying to rip off the idea of a single-stroke alphabet for computerized handwriting recognition, they're just using an obvious approach to generic handwriting recognition.
And generic handwriting recognition is NOT covered by the patent. The patent itself begins, "To relax the graphical constraints on the precision of the handwriting that is required for accurate computerized interpretation of handwritten text..."
Which means that the patent itself cites prior art in general handwriting recognition.
And the patent itself gives specific directions and actual vectors to use to generate the Unistroke alphabet. The result is a bunch of simple squiggles that look kinda "Arabic-ish".
The Grafiti alphabet is immediately recognized as a variant of the Roman alphabet, not designed to be "orthographic", as Unistroke was, but rather to emulate existing stroke patterns as closely as possible while clearly differentiating the characters from one another so the computer can recognize them unambiguously.
Which, IMO, is the obvious solution to the problem.
Now, since shorthand was invented long before Unistroke (as many posters have pointed out), the patent can only protect the specific alphabet mentioned in the patent, and only for purposes of computerized handwriting recognition.
(For a little analogy, this is the equivalent of patenting the "Longbow and Feathered Arrow for Purposes of Hunting Deer", and suing someone who builds an elephant gun, claiming that you have a patent on "all long-range mammal-killing projectile devices". Although that may not be the case with software patents >:^)
This concludes my messy disembowelment of the spurious Xerox claim.
Permission is granted by the author to distribute this message verbatim to the 3Com legal defense team.
Not only did he bring us that nifty coordinate system, he was also the first to convincingly *prove* his existence, which is the next best thing to justifying it;-)
What with Linux now being the official OS of the People's Republic of China, and with DeCSS being important to Linux, and with this case possibly setting precedents that can figuratively buttscrew the Open Source community...
How long is it until "Red China" starts protesting these awful human rights abuses taking place in the US of A? >:-> Heh heh heh heh heh...
Slashdot Mirror
I think I already did that once, when I was ten. Of course, that was without the benefit of this new technological "breakthrough".
-Hypr Geeque
If that is the case, then these guys will come toppling down when the courts rule that they're infringing on people's rights... (At least, I hope that the courts will see the glaringly obvious similarities here!)
If anybody has the specifics on the aforementioned Supreme Court ruling, please let me know...
-Hypr Geeque
Direct all flames to the above address... (especially if you're on a large campus/corporate network!)
I dunno... Orwell's newspeak/doublethink combination in 1984 made a helluva lot of sense to me.
And even if flaws in the language don't absolutely prohibit you from thinking of a concept, they can make it prohibitively difficult, compared to someone whose language already contains said idea, who may take that concept for granted.
[Snippity-snip!]
*Cough, cough*
The choice of language can be critical, as improvisation can be impossible if the tool you choose is horribly inadequate.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll go chop down the mightiest tree in the forest... with a herring!
-Hypr Geeque
(It's Mister AC, with the heart of a dog...)
Please, sir or madam, if you wish to say "eat shit, sons of whore(s)", please utilize a language that the majority of /. (and especially the moderators) can understand and appreciate.
Muchas gracias, maricón.
(Lovely... now I'm not sure whether I get marked "Informative" or "Flamebait"...)
OTOH, people will probably keep trying to post in nonstandard languages... oh well... c'est la vie.
For an example of how this will affect the consumer... well, take a look at TIME and Newsweek's coverages of the AOL/Time-Warner Merger. Very different, indeed! (Although, since Newsweek directly competes with TIME, they might also have ulterior motives...)
-Hypr Geeque
Silly AC... even if your comment did win the t-shirt, how would you be able to claim it?
Heh heh heh heh heh... the true price of Cowardly Anonymity!
Hmm... here's a new, Slashdot-only iSmell:
Eau du Anonymous Coward. It smells like rotten eggs chucked at your house by somebody out of whom you'd REALLY like to beat the snot, if only you knew who it was.
OTOH, this particular AC seems to be the benign sort. ("Benign" in the tumor sense, not the fluffy bunny frolicking in the meadow.)
And what the hell are "grits", anyway?
-Hypr Geeque
-Hypr Gqu
You're completely forgetting about all the cheaters who could just travel to some planet N light-years away, then travel back in time (N + Blargh + Glorp) years, where Blargh = the time it took said cheater to reach said planet, and Glorp is the time it would take the cheater to build an ultra-high powered radio transmitter and aim it to the exact point that the Arecibo telescope will be in N years, plus up to 24 hours of "padding time" to ensure that the telescope will be facing the right direction at the moment the signal arrives.
Then, said cheater simply pushes the Big Red Button labelled "Transmit Bogus Alien Mating Calls To Fools On Earth", sits back and waits.
Of course, he'll still have to rush back to Earth in time to compromise the SETI@Home network's security to ensure that the data packets containing the bogus interstellar message get routed to his computer alone!
Then, he sits and waits.... soon, the data packets are processed, and sent back to SETI... yes, my pretties... soon I^H...he... will receive a pat on the back and perhaps a small thank-you check for my^H^H...his..."contribution" to science...
Umm... the preceeding situation was, ahem, completely hypothetical and I^Hthe hypothetical "cheater" would never stoop so low just to trick SETI@Home into thinking that I, Hypergeek^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hhe had just found extra-terrestrial intelligence.
Or maybe this hypothetical person-whom-I-don't-know would stoop so low... I mean, I have no idea-- it's all speculation, right?
[Mumble... that SETI check had better be enough to cover the costs of the interstellar space ship, the time machine, and the ultra-high-powered radio transmitter... otherwise Dad'll kill me when he gets his MasterCard bill!]
Umm... SETI@Home does offer a monetary reward for finding extraterrestrial life, right?
Uh oh. I'm dead. Unless, that is, anybody could figure out a way I could either:
Well, I'm dead Real Soon Now. There's only one way to prevent this tragedy from claiming the lives of other, innocent victims: OPEN SOURCE SETI@HOME!!
-Hypr Geeque
How 'bout alt.religion.kibology? (And of course, lets not forget www.kibo.net, the Kibological Kathedral ;-)
As for the loud, capitalized "WE WERE ALL BORN IN SIN"... well, you might find your preaching better-received on a different forum. If you find any scientific evidence to support your claims, let me know.
-Hypr Geeque
Of course, if he doesn't get ransom from the site, he could always start blackmailing the individual "sinners"... this could end up being far more profitable for him than stealing any credit card database.
Others have pointed out that an insider could simply sell/distribute the NSA Linux, and that the NSA wouldn't be able to do much about its further distribution.
But, if they keep the source code in a very secure place, and separate from most of their computers (which would only contain the binaries), then anyone who tried to disseminate the binaries could be sued by the NSA (since they have the copyright on their "derivative work") over GPL violations.
The NSA would simply claim that the GPL prohibits distribution of the binaries without the source code, and before anyone got the chance to reverse engineer the binaries, the NSA'd prosecute anybody caught distributing said binaries for software piracy.
Kind of a disgusting loophole... if anybody could come up with any passage from the GPL (or copyright law) that contradicts this, I'd sleep much better tonight!
-Hypr Geeque
First they ignored UDP (the protocol), now they're the ones getting the UDP (the swift kick in the pants that is the Wrath of the 'Net).
And in other news, @Home announced today that it will be buying out the Ministry of Truth, making it the world's third largest Crappy-ISP-cum-Formerly-Half-Decent-News-and-Enter tainment-Company, closely trailing AOL-Time-Warner and MSNBC.
"To relax the graphical constraints on the precision of the handwriting that is required for accurate computerized interpretation of handwritten text, the text that is to be interpreted is written in accordance with this invention using symbols that are exceptionally well separated from each other graphically. These symbols preferably define an orthographic alphabet to reduce the time and effort that is required to learn to write text with them at an acceptably high rate. Furthermore, to accommodate "eyes-free" writing of text and the writing of text in spatially constrained text entry fields, the symbols advantageously are defined by unistrokes (as used herein, a "unistroke" is a single, unbroken stroke)."
And notice the title, expressing what is being patented: "Unistrokes for computerized interpretation of handwriting"
Not any method of computerized handwriting recognition, but only single-stroke characters.
Now, look at the "X" in the Grafiti Character Set.
Aha! Two strokes! That means that Grafiti's not representing the entire alphabet in single-stroke form.
"But", you cry, "a lot of the letters are in single-stroke form!"
Like the letters "I", "O", "U", "S", "C", and "V"? A lot of the Roman alphabet is already expressed in single-stroke form.
So 3Com isn't trying to rip off the idea of a single-stroke alphabet for computerized handwriting recognition, they're just using an obvious approach to generic handwriting recognition.
And generic handwriting recognition is NOT covered by the patent. The patent itself begins, "To relax the graphical constraints on the precision of the handwriting that is required for accurate computerized interpretation of handwritten text..."
Which means that the patent itself cites prior art in general handwriting recognition.
And the patent itself gives specific directions and actual vectors to use to generate the Unistroke alphabet. The result is a bunch of simple squiggles that look kinda "Arabic-ish".
The Grafiti alphabet is immediately recognized as a variant of the Roman alphabet, not designed to be "orthographic", as Unistroke was, but rather to emulate existing stroke patterns as closely as possible while clearly differentiating the characters from one another so the computer can recognize them unambiguously.
Which, IMO, is the obvious solution to the problem.
Now, since shorthand was invented long before Unistroke (as many posters have pointed out), the patent can only protect the specific alphabet mentioned in the patent, and only for purposes of computerized handwriting recognition.
(For a little analogy, this is the equivalent of patenting the "Longbow and Feathered Arrow for Purposes of Hunting Deer", and suing someone who builds an elephant gun, claiming that you have a patent on "all long-range mammal-killing projectile devices". Although that may not be the case with software patents >:^)
This concludes my messy disembowelment of the spurious Xerox claim.
Permission is granted by the author to distribute this message verbatim to the 3Com legal defense team.
(Score: -1, Rambling Lunatic)
How 'bout opensource filtering software that eliminates: BANNER ADS!
Mwa ha ha ha ha ha! >:)
(Olliver Sutton, filtering software can be USEFUL, as well!)
Not only did he bring us that nifty coordinate system, he was also the first to convincingly *prove* his existence, which is the next best thing to justifying it
(Cogito, ergo sum, baby!)
What with Linux now being the official OS of the
People's Republic of China, and with DeCSS being
important to Linux, and with this case possibly
setting precedents that can figuratively
buttscrew the Open Source community...
How long is it until "Red China" starts
protesting these awful human rights abuses taking
place in the US of A? >:->
Heh heh heh heh heh...
This experiment was done by scientists, in a lab. Typically, "natural" means occuring in nature.
And when viable offspring are produced in nature, it's not inter-species breeding, now is it?