agreed!. My roommate is a diabetic so I help him keep track of his diabetes. His meter only keeps readings for the past 14 days, so I record his doses on my pda. I also store his insulin doses on my pda so we both know when he has had his shot and how much. It has helped him more to a) test 2 times before he goes to bed, so he has an idea of which way his bloodsugar is going; b) its helped him by making sure he has gotton his shot.
He is technically a type 1, but did not develop diabetes til he was about 19 or so. As I understand it most type 1 are usually diabetics earlier than 19, while most type 2 are usually not affect till they are older 50ish, but that is not always the case.
The biggest problem he has had has not been calibration, as I think he uses a "OneTouch UltraSmart", but the test stips not working. Test stips suck for several reasons. If they do not get the right amount of blood on them then they fail. If the machine is not correctly calibrated then the test was useless.
What I'd like to see, and I have seen someone making this, is a watch like device. You could wear it on your wrist and it uses ultrasound or something to test your bloodsugar. I would think that in this day and age we would be able to use some kind of ultrasonic wave or something to examine the blood without having to blead a person first. Yes its kinda startreky, but so are combined PET/CT scans. How about a mini-PET/CT scanner like device?
The toughest part for me as the roommate of a diabetic, is dealing with all the blood all over the place. Think 5 pokes a day to test, and then bleed on the test strip, then bleed on the kitchen counter and napkins. Its really unappitising.
If I had the knowledge I'd develop a watch or handheld device that did not need a blood sample to test the blood sugar. I believe it is possible, hey the PET/CT scan can look inside a body and give a 3d view and tell where there is cancer, so why not recalibrate and look in and see what the rest of the body is doing. Then shrink the machine lots.
I don't think, given their current virus propagation, I'd want a grid of windows boxes. I'd guess one gets a virus and it would spread to the grid. They need to resolve the security issues first and then they can do the grid computing. I'd say we wont see this working effectively for at least 5 years. Yes they may have it "working" now, but I'd rather run a grid of *BSD's / *NIX than Windows. Just my 2cents.
As the cost of cameras and digital storage approaches zero, is it inevitable that every machine you interact with will take your photograph and store it?
Yes, this is so everyone can have a copy of your driver licence photo;-)
On my PII 233Mhz, with 64Meg of RAM, an X compile takes about a day or so. But then I'm using XDirectFB, whcih still needs parts of X to compile. It actually has a GUI, and using Opera as a window manager and XDirectFB, its actually not that bad. Of course all you can do is suft the web at that point, but it makes for a nice little mobile web browser, considering its an old Toshiba Portege 3110.
You could be on to something here. I know that banks exchange information via web services about people. I'm dealing with that kind of situation right now where I'm creating web services for these people. Also lending, leaseing and loan institutions do this.
My bad, its still a bad idea to patent things like this. Claim 1 is so broad that perl's ne operator can be read under that claim. What is the difference between saying if foo Is Not nothing and if foo IsNot nothing? Not much IMHO.
I really think that this crap is being done so that the open source community cannot start implementing VB alternatives, and this could hurt the open source.net architecture that was being done by ximian.
MS just patented the IS not statement. This patent was filed in 2003. Not sure, but I know Perl has had the ne operator for atleast 8 if not 10 years. MS's patent does not specify a language till claim 2, thus claim #1 is broad and covers ANY language. Also claim #1 of this patent, does not specify IsNot , IE the IsNot is not specified till claim 3.
Also the NOT operator has been used in VB for I'm not sure how long. I'm not sure who the examiner of this patent was, but they are an idiot for patenting IsNot.
I'd like to get this and several of their other 'patents' thrown out, is there someone out there that is already trying to do this? As a former patent examiner, I know a little about patents.
The point is that IsNot is not in the first claim, and that claim 1 is still very broad reaching and could be argued in a court of law that Java and C both infringe on IsNot.
yet he is perfectly okay with outsourcing american jobs to foriegn countries...
problem here is that he, nor any us company can make any money....
I wonder, if God created the world, like Bush thinks, then isn't destroying the world, essentially destroying Gods work? Isn't that sending a message to God that he does not value his creation?
That is definatly a starting place, but not an end all be all solution. Conservation is something us Californians have done before, but the rest of the US is less used to.
We do need to find alternate energy solutions, but the problem with Nuclear Energy, is where do you dump the waste? The way us is, people will dump it in the river until someone starts seeing 3 eyed fish like the Simpsons:-).
Solar and Wind are two alternatives that are rately discussed. While they will not fulfill ALL the energy requirements, they may be just enough to help us out some. Like maybe if we could produce 10% os the US energy from Solar and Wind. CA already does this, but 10% really is not that much in the long haul.
There is much to be done, and little that anyone wants to do.
Actually it would. If it was described in enough detail to cover the claims section in the patent, it could.
Even if it was on a sci-fi tv show it would count as prior art. EG: no one can get a patent on the flip phone feature, because in the 1960's on Star Trek the communicators would count as prior art and there is nothing unique about the phones themselves.
3 years.. which is more than the 1 year they are allowed. If it was described in 2001 then they would possibly be okay. So who's going to tell the USPTO? Does anyone know the Patent Examiner? Contact them with the details.....
In SF we get large paper ballots ( 11x17 or bigger) and a black pen. For propisitions, you have a yes and no and you draw a line between them. You have a line to select your candidate also. The ballot shows the candidate and party they belong to, and they are usually in columns, with a heading of what you are voting for, and seperated by lines. Like and HTML table with one column and a table header.
Then you get a reciept, and they put it through a machine, which counts it. Unfortunately you don't get a copy of who or what you voted for, which is one area they could improve on.
If you select both Yes and No the machine will reject the ballot and you have a do over. If you select 2 or more people for the same office it gets rejected and its a do over.
Its not perfect, but it seems to work pretty well. Like I said, all I think it needs is a reciept.
... so why does MS charge $300 USD for XP, if they want a $100 computer? Wouldn't it make more sense for them to cut their price to $50 USD to allow $50 for a computer. Yeah I know all about OEM and how makes don't pay as much. But if an OEM can sell you a $100 computer, why can't MS come down on their proce to the end user?
Oh, btw, cell phones and pda's are at around $100, and they are 'computers' (CPU, video, etc) so for a $100 computer, you'd need a cheaper OS. I don't think he gets that. Why am I going to pay $100 for a computer, then pay $300 for office and excel and powerpoint?
while it is possible that they have something to hide, its lesss likely that they do. Working in a software company that has lost source code to products that it has sold in the past, I wouldn't be suprised if IBM lost that code. I find it unlikely that a company as big as IBM would be that unorganized, but am not really suprised to hear a company has lost source code.
I have a FreeBSD 4.10 system running off a cdrom.. I had to do some hunting and research on how to get a bootable floppy image for the cdrom and also some info on how to deal with things like ssh,/dev, tmp and memory disks. Basically read the scripts and hack.
Now I am trying to get a bootable 5.2.1 cdrom. I finally found section 16 of the manual, which describes cdboot. It doesnt really say much else in the way of what do I need to put in the loader.rc file, if anything, or do I need one. It doesn't say if I need to have just cdboot or also boot0 and the loader. Doing just what they suggested left me with a none bootable cdrom.
I'd like to know more information on what I need to do to the boot directory to get a working bootable cdrom. Well I should give it some credit, it does boot, but then it stops and says could not find / . Do I need to specify load/kernel in the loader.rc?
I will say one thing, using cd-rw's and bochs has saved me a few cd-r's.
... just for Linux anymore.. it is also available for FreeBSD and NetBSD, in their packages / ports sections.. anyone who wants to make a small basic rescue floppy / bootable cd could probably use this..
marsha, marsha, marsha... okay I keep reading posts here about hardware support.. one thing I'd like to point ou, is that OS X is based on similar technology as FreeBSD. So I'd imagine that porting drivers from FreeBSD to OS X would not be a huge hurdle. This would probalby include, nics, mb, hard drives, etc. The only remainig issue would be video cards as I see it. I could be wrong.
The bigger hurdle is Mac actually wanting to port to X86. it would suddenly make supporting thier OS more difficult. Its easier to support an OS when you know what hardware you need to deal with, and when you have all the variables limited. Its more difficult to deal with all the windows unknowns.
I know this is more of a 'manual' solution, but one option is just to put the bookmarks on a floppy and transfer them between computers.
If that does not work, then there are several people who have mentioned using either yahoo's toolbar, or some other online tool that deals with that for you.
I am supprised that there is no extension. Alternatively, if you have web space you could upload your bookmarks to you own web space on line then just use that as the master. Of course you'd ahv to find a way to protect your data.
Think of it this way. If the RFID is the 'equivalant' to the key to your house, and someone gets your key, then they have your house. So if your RFID is transmitting, all someone has to do is recieve your RFID and then start transmitting the same key. Then people think they are you.
I had thought that this was using smart cards not RFID. In which case the smart card does not transmit, it actually stores the info.
I have heard that you can make biodiesel, and it burns cleaner than diesel. I'm sure that rather than burning coal, we could use biodiesel instead. Of course this would mean plant conversions. Not sure what else. Coal is a limited thing and once it is gone its gone. Biodiesel well from dictionary.com http://cancerweb.ncl.ac.uk/cgi-bin/omd?query=biodi esel&action=Search+OMD
I don't see why it couldn't be used instead. Give some farmers something to grow.
Your 100% right. The patent office like the post office actually generate revenue. During the Clinton years, Billy boy took 100 million dollars away from the patent office revenues to help balance the budget. The patent office is self sustaining, in that its fees are what pay the employees salaries. I know I once worked there. They not only charge for extensions, but you have to pay to renew your patent every so many years. Believe me they 'paid' for that patent.
My problem with a wearable computer collar, is that it is something we have all probably seen on sci fi shows. "If you get to far apart, your heads will blow up" or "If you go beyond that perimiter, your head will explode." This means that the idea of wearable computer is not a new invention. It would be obvious to any geek on slashdot to take a computer and make a collar out of it. Hey I've seen geeks here make computers out of pizza boxes, why not a wearable collar. Thus if I were the examiner, I'd find a way to reject the patent under a rule 103.
Problem is that the patent office suffers from what most US goverment agencies suffer from, and that is that once an employee gets in the goverment and is there for 3 years, it is near impossible to get them out.
Slashdot Mirror
He is technically a type 1, but did not develop diabetes til he was about 19 or so. As I understand it most type 1 are usually diabetics earlier than 19, while most type 2 are usually not affect till they are older 50ish, but that is not always the case.
The biggest problem he has had has not been calibration, as I think he uses a "OneTouch UltraSmart", but the test stips not working. Test stips suck for several reasons. If they do not get the right amount of blood on them then they fail. If the machine is not correctly calibrated then the test was useless.
What I'd like to see, and I have seen someone making this, is a watch like device. You could wear it on your wrist and it uses ultrasound or something to test your bloodsugar. I would think that in this day and age we would be able to use some kind of ultrasonic wave or something to examine the blood without having to blead a person first. Yes its kinda startreky, but so are combined PET/CT scans. How about a mini-PET/CT scanner like device?
The toughest part for me as the roommate of a diabetic, is dealing with all the blood all over the place. Think 5 pokes a day to test, and then bleed on the test strip, then bleed on the kitchen counter and napkins. Its really unappitising.
If I had the knowledge I'd develop a watch or handheld device that did not need a blood sample to test the blood sugar. I believe it is possible, hey the PET/CT scan can look inside a body and give a 3d view and tell where there is cancer, so why not recalibrate and look in and see what the rest of the body is doing. Then shrink the machine lots.
I don't think, given their current virus propagation, I'd want a grid of windows boxes. I'd guess one gets a virus and it would spread to the grid. They need to resolve the security issues first and then they can do the grid computing. I'd say we wont see this working effectively for at least 5 years. Yes they may have it "working" now, but I'd rather run a grid of *BSD's / *NIX than Windows. Just my 2cents.
Yes, this is so everyone can have a copy of your driver licence photo ;-)
On my PII 233Mhz, with 64Meg of RAM, an X compile takes about a day or so. But then I'm using XDirectFB, whcih still needs parts of X to compile. It actually has a GUI, and using Opera as a window manager and XDirectFB, its actually not that bad. Of course all you can do is suft the web at that point, but it makes for a nice little mobile web browser, considering its an old Toshiba Portege 3110.
You could be on to something here. I know that banks exchange information via web services about people. I'm dealing with that kind of situation right now where I'm creating web services for these people. Also lending, leaseing and loan institutions do this.
I really think that this crap is being done so that the open source community cannot start implementing VB alternatives, and this could hurt the open source .net architecture that was being done by ximian.
Also the NOT operator has been used in VB for I'm not sure how long. I'm not sure who the examiner of this patent was, but they are an idiot for patenting IsNot.
I'd like to get this and several of their other 'patents' thrown out, is there someone out there that is already trying to do this? As a former patent examiner, I know a little about patents.
if ( foo != TRUE ) {}
The point is that IsNot is not in the first claim, and that claim 1 is still very broad reaching and could be argued in a court of law that Java and C both infringe on IsNot.
#define TRUE -1
#define FALSE 0
if ( TRUE ) {} fals under this, as well as Java code.
Its time to start writing the patent office and challenge this patent.
problem here is that he, nor any us company can make any money....
I wonder, if God created the world, like Bush thinks, then isn't destroying the world, essentially destroying Gods work? Isn't that sending a message to God that he does not value his creation?
We do need to find alternate energy solutions, but the problem with Nuclear Energy, is where do you dump the waste? The way us is, people will dump it in the river until someone starts seeing 3 eyed fish like the Simpsons :-).
Solar and Wind are two alternatives that are rately discussed. While they will not fulfill ALL the energy requirements, they may be just enough to help us out some. Like maybe if we could produce 10% os the US energy from Solar and Wind. CA already does this, but 10% really is not that much in the long haul.
There is much to be done, and little that anyone wants to do.
Even if it was on a sci-fi tv show it would count as prior art. EG: no one can get a patent on the flip phone feature, because in the 1960's on Star Trek the communicators would count as prior art and there is nothing unique about the phones themselves.
This is so wrong on so many levels....
Then you get a reciept, and they put it through a machine, which counts it. Unfortunately you don't get a copy of who or what you voted for, which is one area they could improve on.
If you select both Yes and No the machine will reject the ballot and you have a do over. If you select 2 or more people for the same office it gets rejected and its a do over.
Its not perfect, but it seems to work pretty well. Like I said, all I think it needs is a reciept.
Oh, btw, cell phones and pda's are at around $100, and they are 'computers' (CPU, video, etc) so for a $100 computer, you'd need a cheaper OS. I don't think he gets that. Why am I going to pay $100 for a computer, then pay $300 for office and excel and powerpoint?
while it is possible that they have something to hide, its lesss likely that they do. Working in a software company that has lost source code to products that it has sold in the past, I wouldn't be suprised if IBM lost that code. I find it unlikely that a company as big as IBM would be that unorganized, but am not really suprised to hear a company has lost source code.
Is it 5.2?
Now I am trying to get a bootable 5.2.1 cdrom. I finally found section 16 of the manual, which describes cdboot. It doesnt really say much else in the way of what do I need to put in the loader.rc file, if anything, or do I need one. It doesn't say if I need to have just cdboot or also boot0 and the loader. Doing just what they suggested left me with a none bootable cdrom.
I'd like to know more information on what I need to do to the boot directory to get a working bootable cdrom. Well I should give it some credit, it does boot, but then it stops and says could not find / . Do I need to specify load /kernel in the loader.rc?
I will say one thing, using cd-rw's and bochs has saved me a few cd-r's.
... just for Linux anymore.. it is also available for FreeBSD and NetBSD, in their packages / ports sections.. anyone who wants to make a small basic rescue floppy / bootable cd could probably use this..
The bigger hurdle is Mac actually wanting to port to X86. it would suddenly make supporting thier OS more difficult. Its easier to support an OS when you know what hardware you need to deal with, and when you have all the variables limited. Its more difficult to deal with all the windows unknowns.
If that does not work, then there are several people who have mentioned using either yahoo's toolbar, or some other online tool that deals with that for you.
I am supprised that there is no extension. Alternatively, if you have web space you could upload your bookmarks to you own web space on line then just use that as the master. Of course you'd ahv to find a way to protect your data.
I had thought that this was using smart cards not RFID. In which case the smart card does not transmit, it actually stores the info.
This is good news as I am tired of having to add bind 9 from the ports to my system.
I have heard that you can make biodiesel, and it burns cleaner than diesel. I'm sure that rather than burning coal, we could use biodiesel instead. Of course this would mean plant conversions. Not sure what else. Coal is a limited thing and once it is gone its gone. Biodiesel well from dictionary.com http://cancerweb.ncl.ac.uk/cgi-bin/omd?query=biodi esel&action=Search+OMD
I don't see why it couldn't be used instead. Give some farmers something to grow.
My problem with a wearable computer collar, is that it is something we have all probably seen on sci fi shows. "If you get to far apart, your heads will blow up" or "If you go beyond that perimiter, your head will explode." This means that the idea of wearable computer is not a new invention. It would be obvious to any geek on slashdot to take a computer and make a collar out of it. Hey I've seen geeks here make computers out of pizza boxes, why not a wearable collar. Thus if I were the examiner, I'd find a way to reject the patent under a rule 103.
Problem is that the patent office suffers from what most US goverment agencies suffer from, and that is that once an employee gets in the goverment and is there for 3 years, it is near impossible to get them out.